CUSTOMS AND MANNERS, 251 



should no longer be under the tutelage of the negress, the very 

 reverse happens. Maria looks to the little girl, and condu6ls 

 her to the kitchen, to the wash-house, to the street, to the 

 flesh-market, and I know not whither. If my impatience 

 tempts me to rebuke her on this subje6l, I am sure to be the 

 sufferer. Sometimes I endeavour very seriously to persuade 

 Teopiste, that this want of restraint on the part of the nurses 

 is apt to be fatal to the innocence of the children ; that the 

 latter, mixing exclusively with persons of that cast, familia- 

 rize themselves with their coarse manners, and learn and adopt 

 all the vulgarities which are pra6tised among slaves : and 

 that a prudent and respeftable mother ought not to encou- 

 rage, either by her counsels, or by her pra6lical example, 

 the indecent dances which they teach the little girls ; but 

 should prohibit them with all possible rigour. Teopiste 

 listens to my discourse with much serenity, and then observes : 

 " such is the praBice^'' 



What I am about to relate is still more pleasant. Some 

 days ago a patrol lodged in the jail a negro, named John, 

 who had been surprized in the a6t of gaming at an unseason- 

 able hour of the night. Maria came to me to request of me 

 to see the judge before whom the cause of the imprisonment 

 of the negro was to be tried, to the end that he might be 

 more readily liberated. It struck me that it would be some- 

 what indecent to appear as the patron of a no6lurnal gam- 

 bler ; but I went notwithstanding. I learned that the said 

 John, besides being addi6ted to the above vice, was an 

 accomplished thief, a picaroon connedled with all the as- 

 sassins who infest the environs of this capital. On procuring 



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