An Englishman's Travels In America: His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States - 1857 - By J. Benwell.
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This Proposal, The Gentleman Very
Facetiously Observed, The Party Jumped At, Expecting Some Good Sport;
But Added, "The Fellow Spoilt
It, for he refused to stand still,
although we 'used up' a cowhide over him for his obstinacy." The
frivolous
Manner in which this intended outrage was related, filled me
and my fellow-passengers with disgust. I thought it was not safe to
remark on the proceeding, for I could see he was a very strenuous
upholder of that disgraceful system of oppression, which stigmatizes and
degrades the Americans as a people, and will continue to do so, until it
is utterly abrogated, and their characters retrieved.
This would-be patrician was a pedantic, swaggering bully, who, it was
evident, entertained high notions of his importance, and owned, perhaps,
large possessions, - in a word, he was an American aristocrat, and the
description I have given is a fair one of his class in the south.
Pointing to a hill, as we entered a little settlement on our way to
Macon, he exclaimed, "See there, gentlemen, twenty years ago I toiled up
that hill without a cent in my wallet (purse), but now" he continued,
with the air of a potentate, "my niggers are the sleekest in our
country. In those days," he went on, "glass inkstands stood on the
desks of the bank I now am chief proprietor of; we have nothing but gold
ones now." The fellow's bombast lowered him in the esteem of the
passengers, who seemed indisposed to listen to him, and the latter part
of the journey he said little, being in fact regularly sent to Coventry
by us all.
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