at that time, on board of which I met a young colored man by
the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on
the boat, but instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing
me, and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going, and when
I was coming back, etc. I got away from my old and inconvenient
acquaintance as soon as I could decently do so, and went to another part
of the boat.

Once across the river I encountered a new danger. Only a few days before
I had been at work on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard, under
the care of Captain McGowan. On the meeting at this point of the two
trains, the one going south stopped on the track just opposite to the
one going north, and it so happened that this Captain McGowan sat at a
window where he could see me very distinctly, and would certainly have
recognized me had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the
hurry of the moment, he did not see me; and the trains soon passed each
other on their respective ways.

But this was not the only hair-breadth escape. A German blacksmith, whom
I knew well, was on the train with me, and looked at me very intently,
as if he thought he had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I
really believe he knew me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate he
saw me escaping and held his peace.

The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was
Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steamboat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but
no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware,
speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the
afternoon I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York? He
directed me to the Willow street depot, and thither I went, taking the
train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having completed
the journey in less than twenty-four hours. Such is briefly the manner
of my escape from slavery--and the end of my experience as a slave.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

W. H. CROGMAN

Frederick Douglass is dead! How strange that sounds to those of us who
from earliest boyhood have been accustomed to hear him spoken of as the
living exponent of all that is noblest and best in the race. The mind
reluctantly accepts the unwelcome truth. And yet it is a truth--a
serious, a solemn truth. Frederick Douglass is no more. The grand old
hero of a thousa