And that wife, though a slave, unprotected by the laws, driven by the shameful lash, insulted, disgraced and neglected, is a _wife_ still. And when "Ned," as he is called, runs away, it is quite natural that he should, impelled by a husband's love, seek out the hut where years before he had been suddenly separated from her. These advertisements for husbands who are supposed to be "lurking about" in search of their wives, and of wives hunting for their husbands, tell a sad tale. What husband or wife can read them without deep sorrow? The following statement from the pen of an eye witness will illustrate scenes which are being enacted continually in the prosecution of the inter-state slave trade. "As I went on board the steamboat I noticed eight colored men, handcuffed and chained together in pairs, four women and eight or ten children of the apparent ages of from four to ten years, all standing together in the bow of the boat, in charge of a man standing near them. * * * Coming near them, I perceived they were all greatly agitated; and, on inquiry I found they were all slaves, who had been born and raised in North Carolina and had just been sold to a speculator, who was now taking them to the Charleston market. Upon the shore there was a number of colored persons, women and children, awaiting the departure of the boat; and my attention was particularly attracted by two colored females of uncommonly respectable appearance, neatly attired, who stood together, a little distance from the crowd, and upon whose countenance was depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was tolling, I saw the tears gushing from their eyes, and they raised their neat cotton aprons and wiped their faces under the cutting anguish of severed affection. They were the wives of two of the men in chains. There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the departure of their sons and brothers; and there, too, were fathers, taking the last look of their wives and children. My whole attention was directed to those on shore, as they seemed to stand in solemn and submissive silence, occasionally giving utterance to the intensity of their feelings by a sigh or a stifled groan. As the boat was loosed from her moorings, they cast a distressed, lingering look to those on board, and turned away in silence. My eye now turned to those in the boat; and although I had tried to control my feelings amidst my sympathies for those on shore, I could conceal them no longer, and I found myself literally 'weeping with those that wept.' I stood near them, and when one of the husbands saw his wife upon the shore wave her hand for the last time, in token of her affection, his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave way, and fixing his watery eyes upon her, he exclaimed, 'This is the most distressing thing of all! My dear wife and children, farewell!' The husband of the other wife stood weeping in silence, and with his manacled hands raised to his face, as he looked upon her for the last