CHAP. XXIX.] NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. 163 



one hundred Irish and German emigrants at very high 

 wages. In the middle of the harvest they all struck 

 for double pay. No others were to be had, and it 

 was impossible to purchase slaves in a few days. , In 

 that short time he lost produce to the value of ten 

 thousand dollars.&quot; 



A rich merchant of Pennsylvania, who was boarding 

 at the St. Louis Hotel, showed me a letter he had 

 just received from Philadelphia, in which his corre 

 spondent expressed a hope that his feelings had not 

 often been shocked by the sufferings of the slaves. 

 &quot; Doubtless,&quot; said the writer, &quot; you must often wit 

 ness great horrors.&quot; The Philadelphia!! then told 

 me, that after residing here several years, and 

 having a strong feeling of the evils as well as im 

 policy of slavery, he had never been forced to see 

 nor hear of any castigation of a slave in any esta 

 blishment with which he had intercourse. &quot; Once,&quot; he 

 added, &quot; in New Jersey (a free State) he remembered 

 having seen a free negro child whipped by its master.&quot; 

 The tale of suffering to which his Pennsylvanian cor 

 respondent particularly alluded, was not authentic, or, 

 at least, grossly exaggerated. It had been copied 

 from the Abolitionist papers of the North into the 

 Southern papers, sometimes with and sometimes with 

 out comment ; for such libels are hailed with pleasure 

 by the Perpetualists as irritating the feeling of that 

 class of slave-owners who are most anxious to advance 

 the welfare and education of the negroes. 



O 



We ascertained that Miss Martineau s story of 

 Madame Lalaurie s cruelty to her slaves was per 

 fectly correct. Instances of such savage conduct are 



