An evidence or two appeared of the “war of races” which the mourners over dead Slavery were predicting. Some negroes were heard of, at Montgomery, who had come into the city with their ears cut off by their former masters, in punishment for their assertion of their freedom. Of course, such things were far from general; but the fact that they ever occurred gave point to the occasional croakings about negro insurrections. “Negro insurrections,” forsooth! We need new dictionaries to help us understand one another, when knocking a man down for trying the playful liberty of cutting your ears off becomes “insurrection!” * * * * * Mobile houses showed the straits to which the people had been reduced. The pianos all jangled, and the legs of the parlor-chairs were out of tune quite as badly. Sofas had grown dangerous places for any but the most slow-motioned and sedate. Missing bits of veneering from the furniture illustrated the absence of Yankee prepared glue. The glories of fine window-curtains had departed. Carpets had in many cases gone for army blankets. We saw curious rough earthen mugs, that looked as if they had been dug out of Pompeii, where they had been badly glazed by the heat of the lava. These were specimens of home manufacture, to take the place of broken glasses, and had been sold at several dollars apiece, Confederate money. “It didn’t make much difference what they asked; it was about as easy to pay ten dollars of that stuff as one. But look out that your own greenbacks don’t soon get in the same fix.” A Rebel songster was a rare prize, presented by a Mobile lady to one of our party. Its cover was of wall paper, over which the title was printed; and the paper for the body of the book was scarcely whiter. Dinners were a sad trial to the old hospitable and luxurious entertainers. They had fine wines left, but champagne must be taken in plain tumblers, and enough to go around the table of one size or shape could hardly be mustered, even with energetic borrowing. Sets of dishes—whatever, in fact, was breakable—had undergone like disasters. “But we’re all poor alike,” said a sprightly young friend of Madame Le Vert’s. “It makes no difference to us here. Nobody can do any better; so, what is the use of being unhappy about it. I wear this palmetto hat, for example, made in Mobile. It doesn’t look like the elegant straws of the Northern milliner-shops; but everybody has to wear palmetto, and so I’m in the fashion. This silk may be very old-fashioned, and I’m sure the style in which it’s made is; but how were you going to do any better in Mobile? These gloves are not Jouvin’s best, but find me any Mobile lady that has them. And as for shoes, we’ve all learned not to despise calf-skin, or even something a good deal stronger.” And the little foot gave a stamp that certainly never came from a New York gaiter boot.[28]