Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/284

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A hair-dresser's experience

sell her lest she should fall into good hands, and it might be see her children again. He sent her down to Louisiana and had her put in the fields, where she would never see her children or hear from them again.

After she had been there some six months she gave birth to a child, and in three weeks after her mistress also gave birth to a child and died. She was then taken in the house to nurse her master's child. Finding her quite superior to what she was represented to be, and the child being devoted to her, he concluded to take her and his child to New York. When he arrived there he emancipated her and her child, and then gave her her choice to go to Canada or return with him. She preferred going back, hoping to see her children in passing through Louisville. She did get to see them, and then went back to Louisiana and staid with her master for some years till his child was old enough to go to school, when he took his child, this woman and her child and brought them himself to Canada. He gave her up to her husband, and kept his child at school in Toronto, so as to be near her that she could see to his welfare. "Did this man who treated her so cruelly have children?" "Yes, he had a numerous family, both sons and daughters, and I forbear calling his name at present on account of them."

There are few people can imagine the difference in society, in dress, in manner, appearance, and in fact everything in our Queen City in ten years. In 1850, there was a ball at the opening of the Burnet House. All our best citizens, church members, and our upper classes attended. There were two full bands of music and such a supper, I suppose, was never in a hotel,