Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/354

Rh whose feet also were fettered by heavy irons. He looked so good-tempered and agreeable, that I asked with some astonishment;

“But this man, what has he done that he should then be in irons?”

“Ah,” said the keeper, “just nothing but his master had hired him out to work in the coal pits, and something disagreeable to him happened there, so the fellow after that would not work there, and refused to go; so his master wishes to sell him, to punish him, and he ordered that we should put him in irons just to mortify him.”

And this plan had succeeded completely. The poor fellow was so annoyed and ashamed, that he did not seem to know which way to look while the keeper related his story; and besides that, he looked so good-tempered, so full of sensibility that, strong fellow as he was, he seemed as if he would suffer rather from an injustice being done to him, than be excited by it to defiance and revenge, as was the case with the other negro. He was evidently a good man, and deserved a better master.

In another prison, we saw a pretty little white boy of about seven years of age, sitting among some tall negro-girls. The child had light hair, the most lovely light-brown eyes, and cheeks as red as roses; he was nevertheless the child of a slave mother, and was to be sold as a slave. His price was three hundred and fifty dollars. The negro-girls seemed very fond of the white boy, and he was left in their charge, but whether that was for his good or not is difficult to say. No motherly Christian mother visited either this innocent imprisoned boy, or the negro-girls. They were left to a heathenish life and the darkness of the prison.

In another “jail” were kept the so called “fancy-girls,” for fancy purchasers. They were handsome fair mulattos, some of them almost white girls.

We saw in one jail the room in which the slaves are flogged, both men and women. There were iron rings in