This result was not brought about without the intervention of the people, and the threatened enactment of a law compelling railroad companies to respect the rights of travelers.

Hon.
Charles Francis Adams performed signal service in the Massachusetts legislature, in bringing this reformation; and to him the colored citizens of that state are deeply indebted.
Although often annoyed, and sometimes outraged, by this prejudice against color, I am indebted to it for many passages of quiet amusement.
A half-cured subject of it is sometimes driven into awkward straits, especially if he happens to get a genuine specimen of the race into his house.{311} In the summer of 1843, I was traveling and lecturing, in company with William A.White, Esq., through the state of Indiana.

Anti-slavery friends were not very abundant in Indiana, at that time, and beds were not more plentiful than friends.

We often slept out, in preference to sleeping in the houses, at some points.

At the close of one of our meetings, we were invited home with a kindly-disposed old farmer, who, in the generous enthusiasm of the moment, seemed to have forgotten that he had but one spare bed, and that his guests were an ill-matched pair.
All went on pretty well, till near bed time, when signs of uneasiness began to show themselves, among the unsophisticated sons and daughters.
White is remarkably fine looking, and very evidently a born gentleman; the idea of putting us in the same bed was hardly to be tolerated; and yet, there we were, and but the one bed for us, and that, by the way, was in the same room occupied by the other members of the family.