286 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



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was not yet empty he broke in the head and found 

 the toe of a negro in the spigot hole! " 



This seems to be a gruesome and silly story but 

 it must be remembered that slavery was then con- 

 stantly in mind and many stories of its brutality 

 were current. I presume that many of them were 

 untrue or exaggerated but how was I, a little 

 country boy, to know that any more than that the 

 stories of the boatmen on the Erie Canal were of 

 the unsalted variety! Anyway, I wondered and 

 wondered why they cut off the darkies' toes. After 

 I went to bed I would picture the scene and no 

 other foolish little story ever so aroused my 

 imagination as this one. I determined when I 

 should be grown up, to visit New Orleans and 

 find out all about all these horrid practices. As 

 the years went on and sectional strife increased, 

 my desire grew until New Orleans was the one city 

 in the whole world I most wanted to see. 



A few years after my return from Europe when 

 War and a clearer understanding of our national 

 differences had tempered my judgment, I found 

 myself on a bitter-cold February night in the 

 eighties, in Chicago, aboard of a Pullman car 

 headed for New Orleans. As I laid away my 

 overshoes and top-coat I remarked to my wife 



