Our World, or, the Slaveholder's Daughter

ected Co

pon it, and the other adjusted in his vest, deliberately waited the moment to interrupt the conversation. This man, reader, is Marco Graspum, an immense dealer in human flesh,--great in that dealing in the flesh and blood of mankind which brings with it all the wickedness of the demon. It is almost impossible to conceive the suddenness with which that species of trade changes man into a craving creature, restl

f yourn: he's a dashing devil, and you don't know it, he is. But I've stood it so long that I was compelled to make myself sure. This nephew of yourn," said he, turning to Lorenzo, "thinks my money is made for his gambling propensities, and if he has used your name improperly, you should have known of it before." At this Lorenzo's fine open countenance assumed a glow of indignation, and turning t

e. Take my advice, young man; there is a step in a gambler's life to which it is dangerous to descend, and

nnected with this affair, do you?" inqui

on the table and covering his face with his hands. "It was my folly, a

nstate itself. Tell me, Marco Graspum; are you not implicated in this affair? Your name stands full of dark implications;

t length giving bills purporting to be drawn by you and his father. You must now honour them, or dishonour him. You see, I am straightforward in business: all my transactions are conducted with promptness; but I must have what is due

dark abyss. Those who have watched me through each sin, been my supposed friends, and hurried me onwards to this sad climax, have proved my worst enemies. I have but just learned the great virtue of human nature,--mistrust him who would make pleasure of vice. I have ruined my father, and ha

pread. You know our society, and the strange manner in which it countenances certain things, yet shuts out those who fall by them. But what is to be done? Although we may

thirty thousand remaining. Uncle, do not let it worry you; I will leave the country, bear the stigma with me, and

ion, finds gratification in drinking saloons, fashionable billiard rooms, and at the card table. In the first, gentlemen of all professions meet and revel away the night in suppers and wine. They must keep up appearances, or fall doubtful visitors of these fashionable stepping-stones to ruin. Like a furnace to devour its victims, the drinking saloon first opens its gorgeous doors, and when the burning liquid has inflamed the mental and physical man, soon hurries him onward into those fascinating habitations where vice and voluptuousness mingle their degradi

n character and personal worth, it would have been well for Lorenzo; but the neglect to found this moral conservator only serves to increase the avenues to vice, and to bring men from high places into the lowest moral scale. This is the lamentable fault of southern society; and through the want of that moral bulwark, so protective of society in the New E

part of the organisation itself works for the elevation of a degraded class? How much this is to be regretted we leave to the reader's discrimination. The want of a greater effort

pleasantries into deeper and more alluring excitements. His frequent visits at the saloon and gam

im captive in their gratifications; they were inseparable from the whirlpool of confused society that triumphs at the south,--that leads the proud heart writhing in the agony of its foll

the true foundation of the republic stands, the south allows itself to run into a hyper- aristocratic vagueness, coupled with an arbitrary determination to perpetuate its follies for the guidance of the whole Union. And the effect of this becomes still more dangerous, when it is attempted to carry it

is money playing through the hands of his minions in the gambling rooms, had professed to be his friend. He had watched his pliable nature, had studied the resources of his parents, knew their kindness, felt sure of his prey while abetting the downfall. Causing him to perpetrate the crime, from time to time, he would incite him with prospects of retrieve, guide his hand to consummate the crime again, and watch the moment when he might reap the harvest of his own infamy. Thus, when he had brought the young man to th

forgotten, bury the stigma in your own bosom; let it be an example to your feelings and your actions. Go not upon the world to wrestle with its ingratitude; if you do, misfortune will befall you-you will stumble through it the remainder of your life. With me, I fear the very presence of the man who has found means of engrafting his av

s father's and his uncle's estates;-all the filial affection they had bestowed upon him, blasted; the caresses of his beloved and beautiful sister; the shame the exposure would bring upon her; the knave who held him in his grasp, while dragging the last remnants of their property away to appease dishonest demands, haunted him to despair. And, yet, to sink under them-to leave all behind him and be an outcast, homeless and friendless upon the world, where he could only look back upon the familiar scenes of his boyhood with regret, would be to carry a greater amount of anguish to his destiny. The destroyer was upon him; his grasp was firm and painful. He might live a life of rectitude; but his principles and affections would be unfixed. It would be like an infectious robe encircling him,--a disease which he never could eradicate, so that he might feel he was not an empty vessel among honourable men. When men depict