CHAP. XXII.] CURFEW. 43 



auctioneer was selling horses in the same place. 

 Nearly the same set of negroes, men, women, and 

 boys, neatly dressed, were paraded there, day after 

 day. I was glad to find that some settlers from the 

 North, who had resided here many years, were an 

 noyed at the publicity of this exhibition. Such 

 traffic, they say, might as well be carried on quietly in 

 a room. Another resident, who had come from Ken 

 tucky, was forming a party, who desire to introduce 

 into Alabama a law, like one now in force in Ken 

 tucky, that no negroes shall henceforth be imported. 

 By that statute, the increase of slaves has, he says, 

 been checked. A case had lately occurred, of a dealer 

 who tried to evade the law by bringing forty slaves 

 into Kentucky, and narrowly escaped being fined 

 600 dollars for each, but had the ingenuity to get off 

 by pretending that he was ignorant of the prohibi 

 tion, and was merely passing through with them to 

 Louisiana. &quot; By allowing none to come in, while so 

 many are emigrating to the West and Texas, we may 

 hope,&quot; he said, &quot; very soon to grow white.&quot; 



Every evening, at nine o clock, a great bell, or cur 

 few, tolls in the market-place of Montgomery, after 

 which no coloured man is permitted to be abroad without 

 a pass. This custom has, I understand, continued ever 

 since some formidable insurrections, which happened 

 many years ago, in Virginia and elsewhere. I was glad 

 to find that the episcopal clergyman at Montgomery 

 had just established a Sunday school for the negroes. 

 I also hear that a party in this church, already com 

 prising a majority of the clergy, are desirous that the 

 negro congregations should be represented in their 



