“Now for the preacher!"-Mr. Forshou touches his hat, politely.  “Gentlemen purchasing, and wanting a church can be accommodated with that article to-morrow.  Come, boy, mount up here!” The preaching article draws his steps reluctantly, gets up, and there stands,—­a black divine:  anybody may look at him, anybody may examine him, anybody may kick him; anybody may buy him, body, soul, and theology.  How pleasing, how charmingly liberal, is the democracy that grants the sweet privilege of doing all these things!  Harry has a few simple requests to make, which his black sense might have told him the democracy could not grant.  He requests (referring to his position as a minister of the gospel) that good master-the vender-will sell him with his poor old woman, and that he do not separate him from his dear children.  In support of his appeal he sets forth, in language that would be impressive were it from white lips, that he wants to teach his little ones in the ways of the Lord.  “Do, mas’r! try sell us so we live together, where my heart can feel and my eyes see my children,” he concludes, pointing to his children (living emblems of an oppressed race), who, with his hapless wife, are brought forward and placed on the stand at his feet.  Harry (the vender pausing a moment) reaches out his hand (that hand so feared and yet so harmless), and affectionately places it on the head of his youngest child; then, taking it up, he places it in the arms of his wife,—­perhaps not long to be so,—­who stands trembling and sobbing at his side.  Behold how picturesque is the fruit of democracy!  Three small children, clinging round the skirts of a mother’s garment, casting sly peeps at purchasers as if they had an instinctive knowledge of their fate.  They must be sold for the satisfaction of sundry debts held by sundry democratic creditors.  How we affect to scorn the tyranny of Russia, because of her serfdom!  Would to God there were truth and virtue in the scorn!

Mr. Forshou, the very sensitive and gentlemanly vender-he has dropped the title of honourable, which was given him on account of his having been a member of the State Senate-takes Harry by the right hand, and leads him round, where, at the front of the tribune, customers may have a much better opportunity of seeing for themselves.

“Yes! he’s a swell-a right good fellow.”  Mr. Forshou turns to his schedule, glancing his eye up and down.  “I see; it’s put down here in the invoice:  a minister-warranted sound in every respect.  It does seem to me, gentlemen, that here ’s a right smart chance for a planter who ’tends to the pious of his niggers, giving them a little preaching once in a while.  Now, let the generous move; shake your dimes; let us turn a point, and see what can be done in the way of selling the lot,—­preacher, wife, and family.  The boy, Harry, is a preacher by nature; has by some unknown process tumbled into the profession.  He’s a methodist, I reckon!  But there’s choice field property in him; and his wife, one of the primest wenches in the gang, never says die when there’s plenty of cotton to pick.  As for the young uns, they are pure stock.  You must remember, gentlemen, preachers are not in the market every day; and when one’s to be got that’ll preach the right stripe, there’s no knowing the value of him-”