orse social wrongs might and did occur
daily, in the eulogized region; knowing the utter unprofitableness of
any such discussion, not to mention its danger at a period rife with
excitement.

'You are an Englishman,' continued my interlocutor--a portly,
middle-aged, handsome man, to whom I had been introduced just before the
hotel dinner, toward the close of which our colloquy occurred--'and
therefore a born abolitionist--as a matter of sentiment, that is. You
know nothing at all about the workings of our institution, excepting
what the d--d Yankees please to write about us, and the word _slavery_
shocks you. Call it servitude, vassalage, anything else, it might be
endurable enough. One of the advantages, by the way, that Secession is
going to bring with it is, that the world will be brought into direct
contact with us, and thus see us as we are, not through the eyes of the
North.'

'You are in earnest about Secession, then?'

'In earnest! by ---- I should think we were! Don't you _know_ we are,
from what you have seen here?'

I did, and a moment's reflection might have checked my thoughtless
inquiry. I said so.

'Yes, South Carolina's going out of the Union, with or without backers,
and she intends to stay out, too; never were people more unanimous. The
North has got so far toward being abolitionized as to elect a man
avowedly hostile to our institutions, and we are only providing for our
safety by seceding. It's quite time. Essentially we are a different
people: we shall be the best friends in the world separate. It's all a
question of difference of opinion about labor; the North prefers a
system regulated by the mercenary dictates of traffic, ruled by capital,
and subject to the chronic difficulties of strikes and starvation; the
South, a simpler relation, binding master and slave together for their
mutual benefit, abolishing pauperism, and dividing society into two
unmistakable, harmonious classes--the well-fed, well-cared for, happy
negro, and the wealthy, intelligent slaveowner.'

I thought I had read something very like the speaker's sentiments in
that morning's _Mercury_, but didn't say so. I thought also of the
existence of another class at the South besides the two so favorably
characterized, of which I had seen a good representative in a coarse,
half-inebriated, shabbily dressed individual, who, just after
breakfast, had reeled through the crowd always assembled in the large
hall of the hotel to exchan