CHAP. XXIX. ] NEGROES IN LOUISIANA. 



Indians, they would be a doomed race ; but there can be no doubt 

 that white labor is more profitable even in this climate.&quot; &quot; Then, 

 why do you not encourage it ?&quot; I asked. &quot; It must be the work 

 of time,&quot; he replied ; &quot; the prejudices of owners have to be over 

 come, and the sugar and cotton crop is easily lost, if not taken in 

 at once when ripe ; the canes being damaged by a slight frost, 

 and the cotton requiring to be picked dry as soon as mature, and 

 being ruined by rain. Very lately a planter, five miles below 

 New Orleans, having resolved to dispense with slave labor, hired 

 one hundred Irish arid 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 correspondent 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 have often 

 witnessed great horrors.&quot; The Philadelphian then told me, that 

 after residing here several years, and having a strong feeling of 

 the evils as well as. impolicy of slavery, he had never been forced 

 to see nor hear of any castigatiori of a slave in any establishment 

 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 correspondent particularly alluded, was not authen 

 tic, or, at least, grossly exaggerated. It had been copied from 

 the abolitionist papers of the north into the southern papers, 

 sometimes with and sometimes without comment ; for such libels 

 are hailed with pleasure by the Perpetualists as irritating the feel- 

 ino- of that class of slave-owners who are most anxious to advance 



C5 



the welfare arid education of the negroes. 



We ascertained that Miss Martirieau s story of Madame Lalau- 

 rie s cruelty to her slaves was perfectly correct. Instances of such 

 savage conduct are rare, as was indeed sufficiently proved by the 

 indignation which it excited in the whole city. A New England 



