CHAP. XXXVI.] NEGROES IN KENTUCKY. 215 



a plain, colloquial manner, his sermon would seem tame, and 

 make no impression. They can not talk about the price of a 

 pair of shoes, or quid of tobacco, without such gesticulations that 

 you would fancy it was a matter of life and death they were 

 discussing.&quot; There was a second colored 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 ofmaster who, having an untractable black 

 servant, appealed to a ne*gro 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 

 colored people in the city, and in one of them 170 children 

 receive instruction. There are also other schools on week days 

 for teaching 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 respectable 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 she was a negress and a 

 slave, who had never been legally emancipated, so that the mar 

 riage was void in law. Morally speaking, it was certainly not 

 void ; yet a separation was thought so much a matter of course, 

 that I heard the young man s generosity commended because he 

 had purchased her freedom after the discovery, and given her the 

 means of setting up as a dressmaker. No doubt the lady knew 

 that she was not of pure blood, and we were told that only six 



