nd veiled the tragic scene and got the last
gleanings and sacred pledge of secrecy, as a game of that kind will not
do unless it ends in a mystery to all but the fraternity. He sold that
negro for two thousand dollars, and then put him for ever out of the
reach of all pursuers; and they can never graze him unless they can find
the negro; and that they cannot do, for his carcass has fed many a
tortoise and cat-fish before this time, and the frogs have sung this
many a long day to the silent repose of his skeleton."

It will be observed that in the account of his murders, by the
cold-blooded villain, whenever he conceals his victim in the water, he
takes out the entrails. This is because when the entrails are removed,
the body will not rise again to the surface from the generation of gas,
occasioned by putrefaction.

As it is but five years since the conviction of Murel, it may be
supposed that society cannot be much improved in so short a period. But
five years is a long period, as I have before observed in American
history; and some improvement has already taken place, as I shall
hereafter show; still the state of things at present is most lamentable,
as the reader will acknowledge, when he has heard the facts which I have
collected.

The two great causes of the present lawless state of society in the
South are a mistaken notion of physical courage, and a total want of
moral courage. Fiery and choleric in his disposition, intemperate in
his habits, and worked upon by the peculiarity of the climate, the
Southerner is always ready to enter into a quarrel, and prepared with
pistol and Bowie-knife to defend himself. For the latter he cannot well
be blamed, for in the present state of things, it is only being prepared
in self-defence; but at the same time, the weapons being at hand, is one
great cause of such frequent bloodshed. To give the lie, or to use
opprobrious language, is considered sufficient justification for using
the knife; and as public opinion is on the side of the party who thus
retaliates on an affront, there is no appeal to law, as if there was,
the majority would never permit the law to be put in force: the
consequence is, that if a man is occasionally tried for murder, if any
witness will come forward to prove that the party murdered made use of
an offensive epithet to the prisoner, (and there are always to be found
plenty of people to do this act of kindness,) he is invariably
acquitted. The law