h increased disgust and
aversion those who can habitually tease and worry such loveliness and
generosity[23]. After the visitor had been in contact with the
slave-holding spirit long enough to have imbibed it, (no very tedious
process,) a cuff, or even a kick administered to a slave, would not be
likely to give him such a shock that his memory would long retain the
traces of it. But lest we do these visitors injustice, we will suppose
that they carried with them to the south humane feelings for the
slave, and that those feelings remained unblunted; still, what
opportunity could they have to witness the actual condition of the
slaves? They come in contact with the house-servants only, and as a
general thing, with none but the select ones of these, the
_parlor_-servants; who generally differ as widely in their appearance
and treatment from the cooks and scullions in the kitchen, as parlor
furniture does from the kitchen utensils. Certain servants are
assigned to the parlor, just as certain articles of furniture are
selected for it, _to be seen_--and it is no less ridiculous to infer
that the kitchen scullions are clothed and treated like those servants
who wait at the table, and are in the presence of guests, than to
infer that the kitchen is set out with sofas, ottomans, piano-fortes,
and full-length mirrors, because the parlor is. But the house-slaves
are only a fraction of the whole number. The _field-hands_ constitute
the great mass of the slaves, and these the visitors rarely get a
glimpse at. They are away at their work by day-break, and do not
return to their huts till dark. Their huts are commonly at some
distance from the master's mansion, and the fields in which they
labor, generally much farther, and out of sight. If the visitor
traverses the plantation, care is taken that he does not go alone; if
he expresses a wish to see it, the horses are saddled, and the master
or his son gallops the rounds with him; if he expresses a desire to
see the slaves at work, his conductor will know _where_ to take him,
and _when_, and _which_ of them to show; the overseer, too, knows
quite too well the part he has to act on such occasions, to shock the
uninitiated ears of the visitors with the shrieks of his victims. It
is manifest that visitors can see only the least repulsive parts of
slavery, inasmuch as it is wholly at the option of the master, what
parts to show them; as a matter of necessity, he can see only the
_outside_--