fs,
judges, jails, and hangman; and not a hair on the head of one of those
men has been hurt to this day. And it is, believe me, it is the
miserable, wretched independence in small things, the paltry
republicanism which recoils from honest service to an honest man, but
does not shrink from every trick, artifice, and knavery in business,
that makes these slaves necessary, and will render them so, until the
indignation of other countries sets them free.

"They say the slaves are fond of their masters. Look at this pretty
vignette[60] (part of the stock in trade of a newspaper), and judge how
you would feel, when men, looking in your face, told you such tales with
the newspaper lying on the table. In all the slave-districts,
advertisements for runaways are as much matters of course as the
announcement of the play for the evening with us. The poor creatures
themselves fairly worship English people: they would do anything for
them. They are perfectly acquainted with all that takes place in
reference to emancipation; and _of course_ their attachment to us grows
out of their deep devotion to their owners. I cut this illustration out
of a newspaper which had a leader in reference to _the abominable and
hellish doctrine of Abolition--repugnant alike to every law of God and
Nature_. 'I know something,' said a Dr. Bartlett (a very accomplished
man), late a fellow-passenger of ours,--'I know something of their
fondness for their masters. I live in Kentucky; and I can assert upon
my honor that, in my neighborhood, it is as common for a runaway slave,
retaken, to draw his bowie-knife and rip his owner's bowels open, as it
is for you to see a drunken fight in London.'

"SAME BOAT, _Saturday, Sixteenth April, 1842._

"Let me tell you, my dear Forster, before I forget it, a pretty little
scene we had on board the boat between Louisville and St. Louis, as we
were going to the latter place. It is not much to tell, but it was very
pleasant and interesting to witness."

What follows has been printed in the _Notes_, and ought not, by the rule
I have laid down, to be given here. But, beautiful as the printed
description is, it has not profited by the alteration of some touches
and the omission of others in the first fresh version of it, which, for
that reason, I here preserve,--one of the most charming soul-felt
pictures of character and emotion that ever warmed the heart in fact or
fiction. It was, I think, Jeff