American Scenes, and Christian Slavery | Page 8

hint, I again asked my taciturn host if myself and wife could be accommodated. He then, with manifest reluctance, took the cigar out of his mouth, and said he had only one room to spare, and that was at the top of the house. It was "Hobson's choice," and I accepted it. And now for a journey! Talk of ascending the Monument on Fish-street Hill! what is that compared to ascending the St. Charles's, at New Orleans? No. 181 was reached at last. The next task was to find my wife, which after another long and circuitous journey was accomplished. In process of time fire was made, and "tea for two" brought up. Let me, therefore, close my letter and enjoy it.

LETTER III.
New Orleans--The Story of Pauline--Adieu to the St. Charles's--Description of that Establishment--First Sight of Slaves for Sale--Texts for Southern Divines--Perilous Picture.
From No. 181 of the "St. Charles's," we descended, after a good night's rest, to see some of the lions of the place. Here we are (thought I) in New Orleans--the metropolis of a great slave country,--a town in which exist many dep?ts for the disposal of human beings,--the very city where, a few months ago, poor Pauline was sacrificed as the victim of lust and cruelty! Unhappy girl! What a tragedy! On the 1st of August last, I told the horrid tale to my emancipated people in Berbice. Here it is, as extracted from the Essex (United States) Transcript. Read it, if you please; and then you will have a notion of the feelings with which I contemplated a city rendered infamous by such a transaction.
"Many of our readers have probably seen a paragraph stating that a young slave girl was recently hanged at New Orleans for the crime of striking and abusing her mistress. The religious press of the north has not, so far as we are aware, made any comments upon this execution. It is too busy pulling the mote out of the eye of the heathen, to notice the beam in our nominal Christianity at home. Yet this case, viewed in all its aspects, is an atrocity which has (God be thanked) no parallel in heathen lands. It is a hideous offshoot of American Republicanism and American Christianity! It seems that Pauline--a young and beautiful girl--attracted the admiration of her master, and being (to use the words of the law) his "chattel personal to all intents and purposes whatsoever," became the victim of his lust. So wretched is the condition of the slave woman, that even the brutal and licentious regard of her master is looked upon as the highest exaltation of which her lot is susceptible. The slave girl in this instance evidently so regarded it; and as a natural consequence, in her new condition, triumphed over and insulted her mistress,--in other words, repaid in some degree the scorn and abuse with which her mistress had made her painfully familiar. The laws of the Christian State of Mississippi inflict the punishment of death upon the slave who lifts his or her hand against a white person. Pauline was accused of beating her mistress,--tried, found guilty, and condemned to die! But it was discovered on the trial that she was in a condition to become a mother, and her execution was delayed until the birth of the child. She was conveyed to the prison cell. There, for many weary months, uncheered by the voice of kindness, alone, hopeless, desolate, she waited for the advent of the new and quickening life within her, which was to be the signal of her own miserable death. And the bells there called to mass and prayer-meeting, and Methodists sang, and Baptists immersed, and Presbyterians sprinkled, and young mothers smiled through tears upon their new-born children,--and maidens and matrons of that great city sat in their cool verandahs, and talked of love, and household joys, and domestic happiness; while, all that dreary time, the poor slave girl lay on the scanty straw of her dungeon, waiting--with what agony the great and pitying God of the white and black only knows--for the birth of the child of her adulterous master. Horrible! Was ever what George Sand justly terms 'the great martyrdom of maternity'--that fearful trial which love alone converts into joy unspeakable--endured under such conditions? What was her substitute for the kind voices and gentle soothings of affection? The harsh grating of her prison lock,--the mockings and taunts of unfeeling and brutal keepers! What, with the poor Pauline, took the place of the hopes and joyful anticipations which support and solace the white mother, and make her couch of torture happy with sweet dreams? The prospect of seeing the child of her sorrow, of feeling its lips upon her bosom, of hearing its feeble cry--alone, unvisited of its unnatural father;