It is as perfect a misnomer as ever I knew."
"Well," said he, "I must admit there is a screw loose somewhere
thereabouts, and I wish it would convene to Congress, to do somethin'
or another about our niggers, but I am not quite certified how that
is to be sot to rights; I consait that you don't understand us. But,"
said he, evading the subject with his usual dexterity, "we deal only
in niggers--and those thick-skulled, crooked-shanked, flat-footed,
long-heeled, wooly-headed gentlemen, don't seem fit for much else but
slavery, I do suppose. They ain't fit to contrive for themselves.
They are jist like grasshoppers; they dance and sing all summer, and
when winter comes they have nothin' provided for it, and lay down and
die. They require some one to see arter them. Now, we deal in black
niggers only, but the Bluenoses sell their own species--they trade in
white slaves."
"Thank God," said I, "slavery does not exist in any part of his
Majesty's dominions now, we have at last wiped off that national
stain."
"Not quite, I guess," said he, with an air of triumph, "it ain't done
with in Nova Scotia, for I have seed these human cattle sales with my
own eyes; I was availed of the truth of it up here to old Furlong's
last November. I'll tell you the story," said he; and as this story
of the Clockmaker's contained some extraordinary statements, which I
had never heard of before, I noted it in my journal, for the purpose
of ascertaining their truth; and, if founded on fact, of laying them
before the proper authorities.
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