At every village of importance he sojourns for a day or two, each day ranging his 'gang' in a line on the most busy street, and whenever a customer makes his appearance the oily speculator button-holes him immediately and begins to descant in the most highfalutin fashion upon the virtuous lot of darkeys he has for sale.

Mrs.Stowe's Uncle Tom was not a circumstance to any one of the dozens he points out.

So honest! so truthful! so dear to the hearts of their former masters and mistresses! Ah! Messrs.

stock-brokers of Wall Street--you who are wont to cry up your rotten railroad, mining, steamboat and other worthless stocks[38]--for ingenious lying you should take lessons from the Southern negro trader!" Some of the itinerant traders were said, however, and probably with truth, to have had silent partners among the most substantial capitalists in the Southern cities.[39] [Footnote 38: D.R.Hundley, _Social Relations in our Southern States_ (New York, 1860), pp.

139-142.] [Footnote 39: _Ibid_., p.145.] The social stigma upon slave dealing doubtless enhanced the profits of the traders by diminishing the competition.