ous slavers were made at the Astor House. The risk of
detection is less at such a public place than it would be at a private
office.

A man who had failed in business on Greenwich Street was recently
engaged in fitting out these vessels for their African voyage. He was
first sent to procure apparatus for the refining of palm oil. This was
but a blind, the practice being to take out the machinery, and employ
the boiler for culinary purposes, until the vessels had got out to sea,
and there was no farther necessity for duping inquisitive persons. This
man was also commissioned to purchase wooden ware, champagne, and other
necessary articles. Such were the business agents and their duty; all
was liberally paid for and promptly supplied.

As soon as a vessel is ready and officered for the voyage, measures are
taken to procure a crew. Slave-traders employ for this the services of
'runners,' who constitute a caste of pariahs of the most degraded kind.
A conscientious scruple would seem never to enter into their
calculations. They would hardly recognize a precept of the decalogue
except by the circumstance of its violation. Earning their livelihood
thus basely, debauchery and crime constitute their every-day history.
These persons keep a record of the names of men who have served on slave
ships, or been guilty of mutiny, or other villany. So accurate is their
information and so expert are they in their estimate of character, that
they seldom commit a blunder, or furnish a seaman who is not the man for
the vocation. The crew which they select are indeed 'picked men.' They
are of every nationality, and are taken from the seamen's
boarding-houses in the lower wards of the city.

A few years since, the information was received in New York that a yacht
was lying in Long Island Sound, and that circumstances warranted the
suspicion that she was intended for the slave-trade. The marshal, with a
display of enthusiastic zeal for the execution of the laws, proceeded to
the place with a strong force of assistants, and took charge of the
yacht; but subsequent investigations failed to criminate her. The
reputed owner declared that he had fitted her out for a pleasure
excursion; that was all. The vessel was discharged, and a few months
afterward landed a cargo of negroes on the coast of Georgia. So easy has
it been to deceive the Federal officers. The owner of the yacht
afterward declared that he paid ten thousand dollars to get his vessel