At First, Like Many Other Travellers, I Was Deluded By The Notion That These Idlers Were Men Of Independent Means, But My Mind Was Soon Disabused Of This Fallacy.

I ascertained that the greater portion of these belong to that numerous class in America known as sporting gentlemen; in plainer terms, gamblers.

Some of these men had belonged to the higher walks of life; these were the more "retiring few" who (probably through a sense of shame not quite extinguished) felt rather disposed to shrink from than to attract attention. The majority of these idlers were impudent-looking braggarts, who, with jaunty air and coxcombical show of superiority, endeavoured to enforce their own opinions, and to silence those of every one else.

There was also another class of frequenters at such places; this consisted of tradesmen who pass much of their time hanging about at such resorts, to the great detriment of their individual affairs; and, lastly, such travellers as might be stopping in the town, who, through _ennui_ and inveterate habit, had left their hotels, and sauntered "up town" (as they call gadding about), to hear the news of the day.

Soon ascertaining that such places were the best, and, excepting the public prints, the only resort to ascertain the latest intelligence, and to collect information respecting the movements of the black population, and the company, however exceptionable, being termed there respectable, I adopted the plan, on several successive evenings, of quietly smoking a cigar and listening to passing observations and remarks. Some of these were disgusting enough; so much so, that I will not offend my readers by repeating them. Suffice it to say, that any individual possessing the slightest pretensions to the name of gentleman, in any hotel I had visited in England, on indulging in the indecorous language I heard at these places, would, by a very summary process, have met with ejectment, without ceremony. Here, however, a laxity of moral feeling prevails, that stifles all sense of propriety; and scurrility, obscene language, and filthy jests, of which the coloured population are, I suppose, per force of habit, the principal butts, form the chief attractions of such places of resort to their vitiated frequenters.

In the course of these visits I was present at some angry altercations; one of these referred to the recent visit of an individual who was termed by the disputants an "incendiary abolitionist," and who, it appeared, had been detected in the act of distributing tracts, which had been published at Salem, in Massachusetts, exposing the disabilities the African race were labouring under. Extracts from one of these tracts were read, and appeared very much to increase the violence of the contending parties, one of whom insisted that the publication contained nothing but what might be read by every slave in the sacred Scriptures, and that, therefore, it could not be classed as dangerous, although he admitted that it contained notions of "human rights" that were calculated to imbue the mind of the "niggers" with unbecoming ideas. These sentiments did not at all accord with those of the company, and several expressions of doubt as to the soundness of the speaker's own pro-slavery principles, together with the increasing excitement, caused him to withdraw from the contest.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 93 of 101
Words from 48575 to 49119 of 53222