Note 87 — Chapter XI

On Saturdays only, throughout the country, are cattle slaughtered; and thus weekly many persons of each neighbourhood assemble, as much to converse and hear the news as to purchase their portion of meat. On one of these occasions, a young man of colour was stooping to arrange upon the end of his walking stick the meat which he had bought, at the moment that a person of considerable power was riding up. The man of importance, when he came near to the young mulatto, struck him with a long cane with which he rode, saying “why don’t you take off your hat when a white man appears?” The blow was felt severely, and still more severely answered. The man of colour drew his knife, and quickly turning round, ran it hilt deep into the groin of him by whom he had been insulted; and then with the bloody knife in his hand, he ran off, vowing destruction upon any one who touched him. The rich man had only time before he died, to direct that the murderer should not be pursued, owning that his own impetuous tyranny had deservedly produced this catastrophe. The young man returned in a few weeks to his former home, and was not molested by the relatives of him whom he had murdered, nor did the law take cognizance of the deed.