Letter from E. P. Benham.

Mr. Douglass—Sir:—
Some remarks from one of your correspondents on colored aristocracy, &c., called to mind so forcibly, a circumstance of which I was observant, when my home was among the hills of New England, that I feel compelled to give it you, for the benefit of such as it interests. Two orphan girls, one deaf and dumb, the other black, lived under the same roof. They were on terms of great familiarity, their guardians making no distinction to color, and the black child herself seemed to have forgotten that any existed. A funeral of a colored person, occurred, and the girls, hand in hand, attended. Now mark an instance of nature, teaching (for the benefit of those wise ones who say that antipathy is natural.) The white mute, all unconscious of any disparaging contrast, passed to and fro, amidst the group, around the grave, while her aristocratic friends shrank from any contact, as if it were pollution; and on reaching home, exclaimed, with unaffected horror, "Jane went right in amongst the niggers." Now to me it seems that these colored persons, so elevated by fortuitous circumstances, that they, forgetting their own identity, scorn to take their less-favored brethren by the hand, and help them to rise also, are ignorant of what true elevation, the elevation of conscious worth, and moral dignity is. For that aristocracy, whether it be black or white, which has not for its basis, intelligent self-respect, and in-