ESCAPED IN MALE ATTIRE.

Neither in personal appearance, manners, nor language, were any traces
of the Peculiar Institution visible in Mary Millburn. On the contrary,
she represented a young lady, with a passable education, and very
refined in her deportment. She had eaten the white bread of Slavery,
under the Misses Chapman, and they had been singularly kind to her,
taking special pains with her in regard to the company she should keep,
a point important to young girls, so liable to exposure as were the
unprotected young females of the South. She being naturally of a happy
disposition, obliging, competent, there was but little room for any jars
in the household, so far as Mary was concerned. Notwithstanding all
this, she was not satisfied; Slavery in its most dreaded aspect, was all
around her, continually causing the heart to bleed and eyes to weep of
both young and old. The auction-block and slave-pen were daily in view.
Young girls as promising as herself, she well knew, had to be exposed,
examined, and sold to the vilest slave-holders living.

[Illustration: ]

With her knowledge of the practical wickedness of the system, how could
she be satisfied? It was impossible! She determined to escape. She could
be accommodated, but with no favored mode of travel. No flowery beds of
ease could be provided in her case, any more than in the case of others.
Mary took the Underground Rail Road enterprise into consideration. The
opportunity of a passage on a steamer was before her to accept or
refuse. The spirit of freedom dictated that she should accept the offer
and leave by the first boat. Admonished that she could reach the boat
and also travel more safely in male attire she at once said, "Any way so
I succeed." It is not to be supposed for a moment, that the effort could
be made without encountering a great "fight of affliction." When the
hour arrived for the boat to start, Mary was nicely secreted in a box
(place), where she was not discovered when the officers made their usual
search. On arriving in Philadelphia, she mingled her rejoicings with the
Committee in testifying to the great advantage of the Underground Rail
Road, and to the carefulness of its agents in guarding against
accidents. After remaining a short time in Philadelphia, she made choice
of Boston as her future residence, and with a letter of introduction to
William Lloyd Garrison, she proceeded thitherward. How she was received,
and what she thought of