ily
on 9,650 acres of land, who last year raised crops to the value of
$175,000, and that he had but few worthless blacks under his care; and
that, as a class, the blacks have fewer vagrants than can be found
among any other class of persons.'

"Such testimonies gem the newspapers like stars."

"Newspapers of your way of thinking, very likely," said Theophilus;
"but if it comes to statistics, I can bring counter-statements,
numerous and dire, from scores of Southern papers, of vagrancy,
laziness, improvidence, and wretchedness."

"Probably both are true," said I, "according to the greater or less
care which has been taken of the blacks in different regions. Left to
themselves, they tend downward, pressed down by the whole weight of
semi-barbarous white society; but when the free North protects and
guides, the results are as you see."

"And do you think the free North has salt enough in it to save this
whole Southern mass from corruption? I wish I could think so; but all
I can see in the free North at present is a raging, tearing, headlong
chase after _money_. Now money is of significance only as it gives
people the power of expressing their ideal of life. And what does this
ideal prove to be among us? Is it not to ape all the splendors and
vices of old aristocratic society? Is it not to be able to live in
idleness, without useful employment, a life of glitter and flutter and
show? What do our New York dames of fashion seek after? To avoid
family care, to find servants at any price who will relieve them of
home responsibilities, and take charge of their houses and children
while they shine at ball and opera, and drive in the park. And the
servants who learn of these mistresses,--what do they seek after?
_They_ seek also to get rid of care, to live as nearly as possible
without work, to dress and shine in their secondary sphere, as the
mistresses do in the primary one. High wages with little work and
plenty of company express Biddy's ideal of life, which is a little
more respectable than that of her mistress, who wants high wages with
no work. The house and the children are not Biddy's; and why should
she care more for their well-being than the mistress and the mother?

"Hence come wranglings and moanings. Biddy uses a chest of tea in
three months, and the amount of the butcher's bill is fabulous;
Jane gives the baby laudanum to quiet it, while she slips out to
_her_ parties; and the upper classes are shocked at the