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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XVI, Issue 1646, 11 May 1861, Page 3

Life in Soujh Carolina.-—The New York Times publishes the following extract of a private letter from a lady in South Carolina, received in that city “ I fear that secession and revolution ■are with people foregone conclusions; tha: we have gone so far that retraction and recession are impossible, and that civil war, with all its consequent horrors, is already upon us. I shudder for the wives and mothers, sisters and babes, of. South Carolina, as I contemplate the immediate futute nf the State. You need not be surprised al any lime to see. me and tbe children in your midst, for no argument could induce me to remain an hour longer than I should be compelled if the worst should come to tbe worst. You may. imagine, dear uncle, our situation, but you can never realise it in its fulness. Already we trem-. ble in our own homes in anticipation and expectancy of what is liable to burst forth ot any moment—a negro insurrection. Could you see the care and precaution displayed here by the proprietors of the negroes, not, only planters, but others, you would not for .a moment envy us onr possessions,. Not .a night passes that we do not securely lock our field servants in their quarters; but our most loved at)d valued . house, servants, whom in ordinary times we would trust to anv extent, are watched and guarded against with all. the scrutiny and.cate we possess. Our planters and owners of slave property do not allow their servants to have any intercourse with each other, and the negroes are confined strictly to the pre-, mises where they belong. We, are all obliged to, increase our force of overseers to prevent too free, intercourse even among our own servants. I'he. negroes feel and notice these new restraints, and naturally ask,- * Why is this ?’ But it is unne-i ce.sary for them to ask tbe question, for they all comprehend the cause as well as we ribo own'' them. They have already learnt enough to give them an idea of what is going on in the stare and nation, and this knowledge they have not gained from abolitionists as some suppose, but from the conversation of their owners, indirectly held in their presence. They.have already heard ol Lincohi’oelection, and have beard also that he is for giving them their liberty, and you may imagine the result. You have beard that our servants all love their masters, and their masters’ fsmtlies, and wpujl lay down their lives for tb’Cni—-that the coloured race in the South prefm’slavery to freedom—-that they would not be free if they -could, &e. That is but the poatry'of lhe case;' ;the reality consists iu sleeping upon our arms at night, in doubly bolting and barring our doors,' in establishing and maintaining a sufficient patrol ’ force, in buying watchdogs, and in taking turns in watching our sleeping children, to guard tbrnr and ourselves from the ve»;eance of these same 1 loving setvahia’—a vengeance which,-’ though’’ now smoui'deriiig, is liable to burst out at any’ moment, to overwhelm the state, in spite of tire .■palmetto flags or slate precautions. You at the' INorlh are not tbe only ones whb are suffering Ifinanciolly by’lbis new panic. The planters famong us are real y suffering from tbe de'precia-'' pion of their properly, Already negroes are’not Iworib ball price. No one' dares to buy a aer■van!, fearing lest lie,-' in doing so, should be in’troducilig upon his plantation one linctuicd whip the idea a'f frsedom.”— lllustrated Times,