oriation of the Northern abettors of slavery
was too severe to allow them to remain incognito, when they would reply:
It is a sad commentary on a phase of human nature that the oppressed
often, when vaulted into authority or greater equality of condition,
become the most vicious of oppressors. It has been said that Negro
drivers were most cruel and unsparing to their race. The Irish, having
fled from oppression in the land of their birth, for notoriety, gain, or
elevation by comparison, were nearly all pro-slavery. At one of our
meetings during the narration of incidents of his life by a fugitive,
one of the latter class interrupted by saying, "Aren't you lying, my
man? I have been on plantations. I guess your master did not lose much
when you left." Now, it is a peculiarity of the uneducated, when,
puzzled for the moment, by the tardiness of an idea, to scratch the
head. Jacobs, the fugitive, did so, and out it came. "I dunno how much
he lost, only what master said. I was the house boy, one day, and at
dinner time he sent me to the well to get a cool pitcher of water. I let
the silver pitcher drop in the well. Well, I knowed that pitcher had to
be got out, so I straddled down and fished it up. Master was mad, 'cause
I staid so long, so I up and tells him. He fairly jumped and said "Did
you go down that well? Why didn't you come and tell me and I would made
Irish Mike, the ditcher, go down. If you had drowned I'd lost $800.
Don't you do that agin.""

It is needless to say that this "brought down the house," and shortly
the exit of the son of the Emerald Isle. At another time the interrupter
said: "Will you answer me a question or two? Did you not get enough to
eat?" "Yes." "A place to sleep?" "Yes." "Was your master good or bad to
you?" "Marster was pretty good, I must say." "Well, what else did you
want? That is a good deal more than a good many white men get up here."
The man stood for a moment busy with his fingers in a fruitless attempt
to find the fugitive ends of a curl of his hair, temporarily nonplussed
at his palliating concessions, half apologetically said: "Well, I think
it a heap best to be free." Then suddenly and gallantly strengthening
his defense; "but, look here, Mister, if you think it so nice down
there, my place is still open." The questioner good naturedly joined in
the general merriment.

Very frequently we were enthused and inspired by Frederick Douglass,
Henry Highland Garnett, Marten R. Delaney