canvases by Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, George Bellows, and other living American painters whose work, while it is becoming more and more widely appreciated each year, is still beyond all but the most advanced and discriminating buyers of paintings.  I went into ecstasies over this collection, and I said to myself:  “Away down here in Savannah there is some one buying better paintings for a little museum than the heads of many of the big museums in the country have had sense enough or courage enough to buy.  This man ought to be ‘discovered’ and taken to some big museum where his appreciation will be put to the greatest use.”  With that I rushed downstairs, sought out the curator, and asked who had purchased the modern American pictures.  And then my bubble was pricked, for who had they had, down there, buying their pictures for them, but Gari Melchers!  Naturally the pictures were good!

In one room of the building, on the ground floor, is a collection of fine old furniture, etc., which belonged to the Telfair family, including two beautiful mantelpieces of black and white marble, some cabinets, and a very curious and fascinating extension dining-table, built of mahogany.  The table is perfectly round, and the leaves, instead of being added in the middle, are curved pieces, fitting around the outer edge in two series, so that when extended to its full capacity the table is still round.  I have never seen another such table.

Also I found many interesting old books and papers passed down from the Telfairs.  One of these was a ledger with records of slave sales.

In a sale held Friday, October 14, 1774, Sir James Wright, the same British governor who was presently put to flight, purchased four men, five women, nine boys, and one girl, at a total cost of L820, or about $3,280.  Sir Patrick Houston bought two women at L90, or $450.  The whole day’s sale disposed of thirty-five men, seventeen women, twenty-seven boys and ten girls, at a grand total of L3206, or roughly between nine and ten thousand dollars.

The Telfairs were great planters.  Among the papers was one headed “Rules and Directions to be strictly attended to by all overseers at Thorn Island Plantation.”  This plantation was on the North Carolina side of the river, and was owned by Alexander Telfair, a brother of Miss Mary Telfair who gave the Academy to the city.  Dates which occur in the papers stamp them as having been issued some time prior to 1837.  Here are some of the regulations: 

The allowance for every grown negro, let him or her be old and good for nothing, and every young one that works in the field, is a peck of corn a week and a pint of salt and a piece of meat not exceeding fourteen pounds per month.

    No negro to have more than forty lashes, no matter what his crime.

    The suckling children and all small ones who do not work in the
    field draw a half allowance of corn and salt.