286 NEGROES IN KENTUCKY. [CHAP. XXXVI* 



was a matter of life and death they were discussing.&quot; 

 There was a second coloured man in the pulpit, who 

 delivered a prayer with a strong nasal twang, and 

 very extravagant action. The hymns were some of 

 them in rather a wild strain, but, on the whole, not 

 unmusical. 



I learnt that the domestic servants of Louisville, 

 who are chiefly of negro race, belong very commonly 

 to a different church from their owners. During our 

 short stay here, an instance came to my knowledge of 

 a master who, having an untractable black servant, 

 appealed to a negro minister, not of his own church, 

 to interfere and reprove him for his bad conduct, a 

 measure which completely succeeded. We were told 

 of four Sunday schools for coloured people in the city, 

 and in one of them 170 children receive instruction. 

 There are also other schools on week days for teach 

 ing negroes to read, both in Kentucky and Tennessee. 

 When I communicated these facts to Americans in 

 Philadelphia, they were inclined to be incredulous, 

 and then said, &quot;If such be the condition of negroes in 

 Kentucky, they must be better off in slave States than 

 in others called free ; but you must not forget that 

 their most worthless runaways take refuge with us.&quot; 



A recent occurrence in Louisville places in a strong 

 light the unnatural relation in which the two races 

 now stand to each other. One of the citizens, a re 

 spectable tradesman, became attached to a young 

 seamstress, who had been working at his mother s 

 house, and married her, in the full belief that she was 

 a white, and a free woman. He had lived happily 

 with her for some time, when it was discovered that 



