"And Now," Added This Gentleman, "We'll Have A Gin Sling Round For Success." I Heard The Day Following That The

Individual who was the subject of the foregoing proceedings, was accused before the mayor, who dismissed the case with a

Caution, advising him to leave the city with all dispatch, to avoid disagreeable consequences. This the man, by the aid of a constable, managed to do, that functionary, no doubt for a consideration, taking him to the city prison, and locking him up until nightfall, when he was assisted to leave the place, disguised as a soldier. This, I was informed by a friend, to whom I afterwards related it, was one of those commotions that occur almost daily in southern towns and cities.

Such lawless frequenters of hotels, taverns, and cafes, form a kind of social police, and scarcely a stranger visits the place without his motives for the visit being canvassed, and his business often exposed, much to his great annoyance and inconvenience.

So accustomed do American travellers in the south appear, to this system of internal surveillance, that I several times noticed strangers at the hotel or cafe counters openly explaining the object of their visits, and if there is nothing to conceal, however annoying the alternative appears, I am convinced the policy is not had, a host of suspicions being silenced by such a course.

In my travels on the whole route from New York to Charleston, I discovered a most unjustifiable and impertinent disposition to pry into the business of others. If I was questioned once, I am sure I was at least fifty times, by my fellow - travellers from time to time as to my motive for visiting America, and my intended proceedings. I found, however', that a certain reserve was an efficient remedy. Captain Waterton, of South American celebrity, as an ornithologist, and who visited North America in his travels, mentions that if you confide your affairs and intentions when questioned, the Americans reciprocate that confidence by relating their own. My own experience, however, did not corroborate this view of the case, for, though loquacious in the extreme, and gifted, so that to use a Yankee phrase, they would "talk a dog's hind-leg off," they are in general cautious not to divulge their secrets. To say the least of it, the habit of prying into the business of others, is one totally unbecoming a well-ordered state of society, which the American, speaking generally, is decidedly not. It is extremely annoying, from the unpleasant feeling it excites, that you are suspected if not watched (this applies forcibly to the slave districts); and it is a habit that has arisen purely from the incongruity of society at large on the American continent, and a want of that subdivision of class that exists in Europe.

During my visits to the various hotels while I remained in Charleston, for the purpose of collecting information, I was several times interrogated in a barefaced manner by the visitors who frequent those places, as to my politics, and especially as to my principles in regard to the institution of slavery; now, as I was not unaware that my intimacy with the gentleman of colour, which I have already referred to, had got abroad, I was obliged to be extremely guarded in my replies on such occasions. It was on one of these that I felt myself in great hazard, for two individuals in the company were discussing with much energy, the question of amalgamation (that is, marriage, contracted between black and white men and women), and I was listening intently to their altercation, when suddenly one of them, eyeing me with malicious gaze, no doubt having noticed my attention to the colloquy, said,

"Your opinion, stranger, on this subject; I guess you understand it torrably well, as you seem to be pretty hard on B - - 's eldest daughter." This unexpected sally rather alarmed me, for the name he mentioned was that of my coloured friend I have before alluded to, and whose daughter I had only met once, and that at her father's house.

I scarcely knew what to reply, but thought it best to put on a bold face, so facing the man, I thanked him with much irony for the inuendo, and said, it was a piece of impudence I thought very much like him from what I had overheard.

This was said in a resolute tone, and the fellow quailed before it, his reply being, "Now stranger, don't get angry, I saw you the other day at B - - 's house, and could not tell what to make of it, but I hope you don't think that I was in arnest."

I replied to this, that I knew best what business I had at B - - 's house, and that his plan was to mind his own business. I then left him, apparently highly indignant, but in fact glad to make my escape. Like bullies all the world over, the southern ones are cowards; there is, however, great danger here in embroiling yourself with such characters, the pistol and bowie knife being instantly resorted to if the quarrel becomes serious. I saw this braggart on several occasions afterwards, but he evidently kept aloof, and was disinclined to venture in the part of the room I occupied. I ascertained that he kept a dry goods store in King-street, and was a boisterous fellow, often involved in quarrels.

The discussion on amalgamation, which is a very vexed one, was again introduced on a subsequent occasion; a planter from the north of the state having (as is sometimes the case) sold off everything he possessed, and removed to the State of Maine, taking with him a young quadroon woman, with the intention of making her his lawful wife, and living there retired. After the expression of a variety of opinions as to what this man deserved, some being of opinion that the subject ought to be mooted in the legislature at Washington - others, that his whole effects ought to be escheated, for the benefit of the public treasury - and by far the greater number that he ought to be summarily dealt with at the hands of the so-considered outraged citizens, which, in other language, meant "lynched," - it was stated, by a very loquacious Yankee-looking fellow present, who made himself prominent in the discussion, that it was the opinion of the company, that any man marrying a woman with negro blood in her veins, should be hanged, as a traitor to southern interests and a bad citizen.

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