" I heard the day following that the
individual who was the subject of the foregoing proceedings, was accused
before the mayor, who dismissed the case with a caution, advising him to
leave the city with all dispatch, to avoid disagreeable consequences.
This the man, by the aid of a constable, managed to do, that
functionary, no doubt for a consideration, taking him to the city
prison, and locking him up until nightfall, when he was assisted to
leave the place, disguised as a soldier. This, I was informed by a
friend, to whom I afterwards related it, was one of those commotions
that occur almost daily in southern towns and cities.
Such lawless frequenters of hotels, taverns, and cafes, form a kind of
social police, and scarcely a stranger visits the place without his
motives for the visit being canvassed, and his business often exposed,
much to his great annoyance and inconvenience.
So accustomed do American travellers in the south appear, to this system
of internal surveillance, that I several times noticed strangers at the
hotel or cafe counters openly explaining the object of their visits, and
if there is nothing to conceal, however annoying the alternative
appears, I am convinced the policy is not had, a host of suspicions
being silenced by such a course.
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