The practice, so common in the slave states, of the citizens congregating at the bars of hotels or cafes in the towns and cities to while away the time, renders attendance at such places the readiest means of ascertaining the state of the public mind on any engrossing subject, opinions being here freely discussed, not, however, without bias and anger; on the contrary, the practice is most sectarian, and frequently involves deadly feuds and personal encounters, these latter being of every-day occurrence.  Ever since I had been in the southern states, my attention had been attracted to the swarms of well-dressed loungers at cafes and hotels.  At first, like many other travellers, I was deluded by the notion that these idlers were men of independent means, but my mind was soon disabused of this fallacy.  I ascertained that the greater portion of these belong to that numerous class in America known as sporting gentlemen; in plainer terms, gamblers.  Some of these men had belonged to the higher walks of life; these were the more “retiring few” who (probably through a sense of shame not quite extinguished) felt rather disposed to shrink from than to attract attention.  The majority of these idlers were impudent-looking braggarts, who, with jaunty air and coxcombical show of superiority, endeavoured to enforce their own opinions, and to silence those of every one else.

There was also another class of frequenters at such places; this consisted of tradesmen who pass much of their time hanging about at such resorts, to the great detriment of their individual affairs; and, lastly, such travellers as might be stopping in the town, who, through ennui and inveterate habit, had left their hotels, and sauntered “up town” (as they call gadding about), to hear the news of the day.

Soon ascertaining that such places were the best, and, excepting the public prints, the only resort to ascertain the latest intelligence, and to collect information respecting the movements of the black population, and the company, however exceptionable, being termed there respectable, I adopted the plan, on several successive evenings, of quietly smoking a cigar and listening to passing observations and remarks.  Some of these were disgusting enough; so much so, that I will not offend my readers by repeating them.  Suffice it to say, that any individual possessing the slightest pretensions to the name of gentleman, in any hotel I had visited in England, on indulging in the indecorous language I heard at these places, would, by a very summary process, have met with ejectment, without ceremony.  Here, however, a laxity of moral feeling prevails, that stifles all sense of propriety; and scurrility, obscene language, and filthy jests, of which the coloured population are, I suppose, per force of habit, the principal butts, form the chief attractions of such places of resort to their vitiated frequenters.