Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/30

28 Canada, are, I learn from the papers, in such a desperate state of hopeless misery (as they never will work without compulsion), that the public has been forced to raise a fund to keep them from famishing in their midst.

Leaving the abolitionists, however, to the deep and hopeless remorse that all feel sooner or later, who have seduced a fellow-immortal into misery and crime, I will now proceed to state the condition of the degraded class of black people in Philadelphia. I mention simply what I have heard from some of the most respectable old citizens of that city. I was very anxious to see for myself such speaking pictures of the fanaticism of those who steal away our slaves and bring them here to perish ; but I was forbidden by my husband to go into places teeming with pestilence, disease, and frightful enormities. An excellent Christian lady told me that she was walking in company with her married daughter one night in Reading, near Philadelphia, and she heard groans of anguish. She stopped, and soon saw a wretched black woman lying on the curb-stone, apparently convulsed with pain. She advanced towards her, to know what was the matter. The poor creature held on to her, and would not let her go. Soon, one or two humane white men were attracted to the spot, and, after seeing her desperate condition, they applied to five different negro houses in the neighborhood to beg them to take her in, but she was refused admittance, although they were offered five dollars to let her stay with them just for one night. These men, however, obtained an old settee, and laid her on it. It was bitter cold, in the month of February, and she had on little or no warm clothing. In this extremity, she was carried into a stable near by, and there her child was born. The good Samaritan that first found her never left her side until she had sent to all her friends, and had the poor woman made comfortable. She says, in this lonely stable she thought of the birth of the Saviour, and knew his spirit was near her, although it was midnight, to shield her and her helpless charge from every harm.

Another very intelligent old lady told me that one of her friends became so much excited about the condition of the colored people in Philadelphia, that she insisted on her going with her to see what could be done. They first met an emaciated little girl five years old with a broken tumbler in her hand. It contained as much whiskey as it could hold; and when they asked the child what she was going to do with it, she replied, "Why, drink it, to be sure." They then met numbers of drunken and horrid-looking black women, and finally,