60 DRUNKENNESS IN ALABAMA. [CHAP. XX IV. 



perior qualities, on which he enlarged in detail. There was a 

 sharp bidding, which lasted only a few minutes, when he was 

 sold for 675 dollars. Mr. Pickett immediately asked him to get 

 ready our horse, and, as he came away with us, began to joke 

 with him, and told him &quot; they have bid a hundred dollars more 

 for you than I would have given ;&quot; to which he replied, very 

 complacently, &quot; My master, who has had the hire of me for three 

 years, knew better than to let any one outbid him.&quot; I discovered, 

 in short, that he had gone to the sale with the full conviction 

 that the person whom he had been serving was determined to 

 buy him in, so that his mind was quite at ease, and the price 

 offered for him had made him feel well satisfied with himself. 



I witnessed no mal-treatment of slaves in this state, but drunk 

 enness prevails to such a degree among their owners, that I can 

 not doubt that the power they exercise must often be fearfully 

 abused. In the morning the proprietor of the house where I 

 lodged was intoxicated, yet taking fresh drams when T left him, 

 and evidently thinking me somewhat unpolite when I declined 

 to join him. In the afternoon, when I inquired at the house of 

 a German settler, whether I could see some fossil bones discover 

 ed on his plantation, I was told that he was not at home ; in 

 fact, that he had not returned the night before, and was supposed 

 to be lying somewhere drunk in the woods, his wife having set 

 out in search of him in one direction, and his sister in another. 

 In the Congress at Washington I had seen one of the represent 

 atives of this state, the worse for liquor, on his legs in the 

 House, and I afterward heard of his being killed in a brawl in 

 Alabama ; yet every one here speaks of the great reform which 

 the temperance movement has made, it being no longer an 

 offense to decline taking a dram with your host. 



When the conversation at Macon turned on dueling, I re 

 marked to one of the lawyers, that a new bill had just been 

 passed by the State of Mississippi, inflicting political disfran- 

 chisement as a penalty on every one concerned, whether, as first 

 or second, in a duel. He laughed, and said, &quot; We have a simi 

 lar statute here, but it is nugatory, for the forfeited rights are 

 always restored by the Legislature, as a matter of course, if the 



