Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/328

 still continued a scene of drunken uproar, such as made my further stay there neither conducive to my health nor perhaps compatible with my safety, he insisted upon taking me to his own house. This invitation, under the circumstances, I was glad to accept; and keeping my room for three or four days, I gradually recovered, and grew strong again.

My host, who of course was without any clew to the special interest which I had in the death of Thomas, seemed rather surprised at the serious effect which that incident had produced upon me; nor could he otherwise explain it except by supposing that alarm for my own personal safety had a great share in it. He therefore exerted all his eloquence, as well to reassure me personally as to vindicate the reputation of the southern states against any conclusions which I might hastily draw. He,assured me, upon his honor, that such scenes as I had witnessed were not by any means common. Once in a while the indignation of the people, roused to the highest pitch by some atrocious [sic]villany on the part of some negro, did vent itself in the way I had witnessed. But this burning alive was quite an exceptional circumstance. He had never known more than two or three other instances of it, and those provoked by some horrible misdemeanor, such as the murder of a white man, or the rape of a white woman. He hoped I should be candid enough to admit that a few such instances could not be considered as seriously detracting from the claims of the southern states to stand in the highest ranks of civilization and Christianity. The fact was, the negroes were such a set of unmitigated savages, that occasional examples were necessary to inspire them with a wholesome degree of dread.

1 was not at present in a state of mind to conduct an argument with much advantage. Besides, notwithstanding my host's personal kindness towards me, I very soon discovered, what the circumstances under which I had first met him might have given