this objection to doing them right is not very valid. I
cannot imagine that they would smell much worse if they were free, or come
in much closer contact with the delicate organs of their white, fellow
countrymen; indeed, inasmuch as good deeds are spoken of as having a sweet
savour before God, it might be supposed that the freeing of the blacks
might prove rather an odoriferous process than the contrary. However this
may be, I must tell you that this potent reason for enslaving a whole race
of people is no more potent with me than most of the others adduced to
support the system, inasmuch as, from observation and some experience, I
am strongly inclined to believe that peculiar ignorance of the laws of
health and the habits of decent cleanliness are the real and only causes
of this disagreeable characteristic of the race--thorough ablutions and
change of linen, when tried, having been perfectly successful in removing
all such objections; and if ever you have come into anything like
neighbourly proximity with a low Irishman or woman, I think you will allow
that the same causes produce very nearly the same effects. The stench in
an Irish, Scotch, Italian, or French hovel are quite as intolerable as any
I ever found in our negro houses, and the filth and vermin which abound
about the clothes and persons of the lower peasantry of any of those
countries as abominable as the same conditions in the black population of
the United States. A total absence of self-respect begets these hateful
physical results, and in proportion as moral influences are remote,
physical evils will abound. Well-being, freedom, and industry induce
self-respect, self-respect induces cleanliness and personal attention, so
that slavery is answerable for all the evils that exhibit themselves where
it exists--from lying, thieving, and adultery, to dirty houses, ragged
clothes, and foul smells.

But to return to our Ganymedes. One of them--the eldest son of our
laundrywoman, and Mary's brother, a boy of the name of Aleck
(Alexander)--is uncommonly bright and intelligent; he performs all the
offices of a well-instructed waiter with great efficiency, and anywhere
out of slave land would be able to earn fourteen or fifteen dollars a
month for himself; he is remarkably good tempered and well disposed. The
other poor boy is so stupid that he appears sullen from absolute darkness
of intellect; instead of being a little lower than the angels, he is
scarcely a litt