e of each other, which they
intend for help to us. How thankful I should be if I could substitute
for their unsavory proximity while I eat, that of a clean dumb waiter.
This unlimited supply of untrained savages, (for that is what they
really are) is anything but a luxury to me. Their ignorance, dirt, and
stupidity seem to me as intolerable as the unjust laws which condemn
them to be ignorant, filthy, and stupid.

The value of this human property is, alas! enormous; and I grieve to
think how great is the temptation to perpetuate the system to its
owners. Of course I do not see, or at any rate have not yet seen,
anything to shock me in the way of positive physical cruelty. The
refractory negroes are flogged, I know, but I am told it is a case of
rare occurrence; and it is the injustice, and the kind, rather than the
severity, of the infliction that is the most odious part of it to me.
The people are, I believe, regularly and sufficiently fed and clothed,
and they have tolerably good habitations provided for them, nor are they
without various small indulgences; but of their moral and intellectual
wants no heed whatever is taken, nor are they even recognized as
existing, though some of these poor people exhibit intelligence,
industry, and activity, which seem to cry aloud for instruction and the
means of progress and development. These are probably rare exceptions,
though, for the majority of those I see appear to be sunk in the lowest
slough of benighted ignorance, and lead a lazy, listless, absolutely
animal existence, far more dirty and degraded (though more comfortable,
on account of the climate) than that of _your_ lowest and most miserable
wild "bog trotters."

I had desired very earnestly to have the opportunity of judging of this
matter of slavery for myself; not, of course, that I ever doubted that
to keep human beings as slaves was in itself wrong, but I supposed that
I might, upon a nearer observation of the system, discover at any rate
circumstances of palliation in the condition of the negroes: hitherto,
however, this has not been the case with me; the wrong strikes me more
forcibly every hour I live here. The theory of human property is more
revolting to every sentiment of humanity; and the evil effect of such a
state of things _upon the whites_, who inflict the wrong, impresses me
as I did not anticipate that it would, with still more force.

The habitual harsh tone of command towards these men and _women_