[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. Fourth Series CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. NO. 733. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._] THE JUBILEE SINGERS. One of the most interesting and vivid of our recollections is that of witnessing some scenes in negro slavery in the United States, now upwards of twenty years ago--very nearly the close of the iniquity; but of that nobody was aware. There was a novelty in seeing fairly dressed men and women brought out for sale by public auction, and in observing how the persons who came to buy carefully examined the men's hands and the flexibility of their fingers, looked into their mouths to make sure of their teeth, and having effected a removal of the coats and shirts, scanned the bare backs to discover whether they had suffered by the lash. Just as in buying horses in a market, it was quite a business affair; and what was a little surprising, the unfortunate objects of this degrading exhibition took all in good part. But what else could they do? In the grasp of power, they knew that resistance was worse than useless. Close by were cow-hide whips handled by heartless ruffians voraciously chewing tobacco, as if to keep up the proper inspiration of brutality. Across the way was seen an ugly brick building inscribed with the word JAIL, in tall black letters on a white ground, to which establishment, in case of remonstrance, the poor wretches would have been instantly marched for punishment. Doom hopeless!