60 E.S. Hawkins, G.H. Hitchings, and Webb,
Merrill and Company were also listed in this traffic. At St. Louis in 1859
Corbin Thompson and Bernard M. Lynch were the principal slave dealers. The
rates of the latter, according to his placard, were 37-1/2 cents per day
for board and 2-1/2 per cent, commission on sales; and all slaves entrusted
to his care were to be held at their owners' risk.[18]

[Footnote 15: _Southern Business Directory_ (Charleston, 1854), I, 163.]

[Footnote 16: Atlanta _Intelligencer_, Mch. 7, 1860.]

[Footnote 17: _Southern Business Directory_, II, 131.]

[Footnote 18: H.A. Trexler, _Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865_ (Baltimore,
1914), p. 49.]

On the other hand a rural owner disposed to sell a slave locally would
commonly pass the word round among his neighbors or publish a notice in the
county newspaper. To this would sometimes be appended a statement that the
slave was not to be sent out of the state, or that no dealers need apply.
The following is one of many such Maryland items: "Will be sold for cash or
good paper, a negro woman, 22 years old, and her two female children. She
is sold for want of employment, and will not be sent out of the state.
Apply to the editor."[19] In some cases, whether rural or urban, the slave
was sent about to find his or her purchaser. In the city of Washington
in 1854, for example, a woman, whose husband had been sold South, was
furnished with the following document: "The bearer, Mary Jane, and her two
daughters, are for sale. They are sold for no earthly fault whatever. She
is one of the most ladylike and trustworthy servants I ever knew. She is
a first rate parlour servant; can arrange and set out a dinner or party
supper with as much taste as the most of white ladies. She is a pretty good
mantua maker; can cut out and make vests and pantaloons and roundabouts
and joseys for little boys in a first rate manner. Her daughters' ages are
eleven and thirteen years, brought up exclusively as house servants. The
eldest can sew neatly, both can knit stockings; and all are accustomed to
all kinds of house work. They would not be sold to speculators or traders
for any price whatever." The price for the three was fixed at $1800, but a
memorandum stated that a purchaser taking the daughters at $1000 might have
the mother on a month's trial. The girls were duly bought by Dr. Edward
Maynard, who we may hope took the mother also at the end of the stipulated
month.[20] In the c