ick. "It would shock your philanthropic
soul, and set your very teeth of humanity on edge. But have you ever
seen--the Black Stole?"

"No."

"Never seen the Black Stole?"

"No, never."

"Why, it ain't possible? Did you never hear of it nother?"

"No, never. Well now, do tell!"

"So you never heerd tell of it, nor never sot eyes on it?"

"Certainly never."

"Well, that bangs the bush, now! I suppose you didn't. Guess you never
did, and never will, nor no other traveller, nother, that ever slept
in shoe-leather. They keep dark about these atrocities. Well, the Black
Stole is a loose kind of shirt-coat, like an English carter's frock;
only, it is of a different colour. It is black instead of white, and
made of nigger hide, beautifully tanned, and dressed as soft as a glove.
It ain't every nigger's hide that's fit for a stole. If they are too
young, it is too much like kid; if they are too old, it's like sole
leather, it's so tough; and if they have been whipt, as all on 'em have
a'most, why the back is all cut to pieces, and the hide ruined. It
takes several sound nigger skins to make a stole; but when made, it's a
beautiful article, that's a fact.

"It is used on a plantation for punishment. When the whip don't do its
work, strip a slave, and jist clap on to him the Black Stole. Dress
him up in a dead man's skin, and it frightens him near about to death.
You'll hear him screetch for a mile a'most, so 'tarnally skeered. And
the best of the fun is, that all the rest of the herd, bulls, cows, and
calves, run away from him, jist as if he was a panther."

"Fun, Sir! Do you call this fun?"

"Why sartainly I do. Ain't it better nor whippin' to death? "What's
a Stole arter all? It's nothin' but a coat. Philosophizin' on it,
Stranger, there is nothin' to shock a man. The dead don't feel.
Skinnin', then, ain't cruel, nor is it immoral. To bury a good hide, is,
waste--waste is wicked. There are more good hides buried in the
States, black and white, every year, than would pay the poor-rates and
state-taxes. They make excellent huntin'-coats, and would make beautiful
razor-straps, bindin' for books, and such like things; it would make a
noble export. Tannin' in hemlock bark cures the horrid nigger flavour.
But then, we hante arrived at that state of philosophy; and when it is
confined to one class of the human family, it would be dangerous.
The skin of a crippled slave might be worth more than the critter was
himself; a