Such cruelties probably are not of common occurrence; but the habits of indolence, acquired by having slaves to obey every look, are universal. Ladies thus educated consider it a hardship to untie a string, or pick up a handkerchief that has fallen. A slave must be always near them to perform such offices. Even after the family have retired to rest, some of their locomotive machinery must be within call. A lady, having heard surprise expressed at this custom, replied with much earnestness, “Mercy! what should I, or my husband do, if we happened to want a glass of water in the night, and there was nobody near to bring it!” A little girl, whose parents removed from Massachusetts to South Carolina, complained that she had an utter aversion to going to school, it was so fatiguing to carry her books. All the other little girls had slaves to carry them. Among the women of slave countries there is a tendency to mental as well as physical indolence. They are often more elegant and graceful than ladies educated under a more healthy system; but they are far less capable, industrious, and well-informed. The slaves themselves are brutally ignorant. In several of the United States, there are very strict laws to prevent their learning the alphabet. Early habits of allowed profligacy in men form a bad school for the domestic affections; and a wife who sees herself neglected for others, with a great deal of unemployed time on her own hands, is placed in circumstances where she has need of great strength of principle. According to Stedman’s account, these influences have produced a lamentable effect on the character of women in Surinam; though there are there, as elsewhere, honorable exceptions to the general tone of manners and morals.