slaves he buys and sells are vicious ones sold for crimes and misdemeanors,
or otherwise diseased ones sold because of their worthlessness as property.
These he purchases for about one half what healthy and honest slaves would
cost him; but he sells them as both honest and healthy, mark you! So soon
as he has completed his 'gang' he dresses them up in good clothes, makes
them comb their kinky heads into some appearance of neatness, rubs oil on
their dusky faces to give them a sleek healthy color, gives them a dram
occasionally to make them sprightly, and teaches each one the part he or
she has to play; and then he sets out for the extreme South.... At every
village of importance he sojourns for a day or two, each day ranging his
'gang' in a line on the most busy street, and whenever a customer makes his
appearance the oily speculator button-holes him immediately and begins to
descant in the most highfalutin fashion upon the virtuous lot of darkeys he
has for sale. Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom was not a circumstance to any one of
the dozens he points out. So honest! so truthful! so dear to the hearts
of their former masters and mistresses! Ah! Messrs. stock-brokers of Wall
Street--you who are wont to cry up your rotten railroad, mining, steamboat
and other worthless stocks[38]--for ingenious lying you should take lessons
from the Southern negro trader!" Some of the itinerant traders were said,
however, and probably with truth, to have had silent partners among the
most substantial capitalists in the Southern cities.[39]

[Footnote 38: D.R. Hundley, _Social Relations in our Southern States_ (New
York, 1860), pp. 139-142.]

[Footnote 39: _Ibid_., p.145.]

The social stigma upon slave dealing doubtless enhanced the profits of the
traders by diminishing the competition. The difference in the scales of
prices prevailing at any time in the cheapest and the dearest local markets
was hardly ever less than thirty per cent. From such a margin, however,
there had to be deducted not only the cost of feeding, clothing,
sheltering, guarding and transporting the slaves for the several months
commonly elapsing between purchase and sale in the trade, but also
allowances for such loss as might occur in transit by death, illness,
accident or escape. At some periods, furthermore, slave prices fell so
rapidly that the prospect of profit for the speculator vanished. At
Columbus, Georgia, in December, 1844, for example, it was reported that a
coffl