"Cup wich cheers, but don't intoxicate very much,"
ez Dryden hez it, tho I bleeve, to keep off chills, in this country,
they mix three and a half parts uv whiskey to one uv tea, the name uv
Sumner wuz mentioned.
Mrs. Pogram to-wunst remarked that she didn't want the name uv that ojus
creecher spoken at her table.
"Why?" sed I, gratified at the ebulition.
"I hate him!" sed she, spitefully.
"So do I," replied I; "but what hev yoo agin him, aside from his
obnoxious political opinions?"
"Didn't he marry a nigger?" sed Mrs. P., triumphantly. "Didn't he marry
a nigger--a full-blooded nigger? and hezn't he hed nineteen yaller
children, every one uv wich he compelled, agin their will, to marry
full-blooded niggers? Didn't he--"
"Mrs. P.," sed this Illinoy store-keeper, wich his name it wuz Pollock,
"do yoo object to miscegenation?"
"Missee--what?" replied she, struck all uv a heap at the word.
"Miscegenation--amalgamation--marryin whites with niggers."
"Do I?" retorted she; "ketch a son uv mine marryin a nigger! They are
another race; they'r beasts; and who'd marry em but jist sich men ez
Sumner and them other Ablishnists?"
"Then permit me to ask," sed this Pollock, wich wuz bound to kick up a
muss, "ef ther's any race uv pure blood in this section uv Kentucky,
wich is yaller?"
"No! uv course not," sed Mrs. P.; "them yaller people is mulatters--half
nigger, half white."
"And them ez is quite white--not quite, but nearly so--about the color
uv a new saddle, like Jane, there," sed he, pintin to a octoroon girl uv
18 wich used to belong to the Deekin afore the isshooin uv the infernal
proclamashen, "like Jane, there, wich is waitin on the Deekin, and--but,
good Lord!" sed he, startin up like a tragedian.
"Wat!" shouted the company, all startin up.
"Nothin," sed he: "only, now that Jane's face is in range with the
Deekin's, wat a wonderful resemblance! She hez the Pogram nose and
ginral outline uv face; not Mrs. P.'s angularity, but the Deekin all
over. My deer sir," sed he, addressin the Deekin, "ef she wuzn't a
quadroon, I shood say she looks enough like yoo to be yoor daughter, by
a first wife, I shood say, for she hez not, ez I remarked, Mrs. P.'s
angularity and gineral boneinis; but uv course, she bein a part nigger,
the resemblance may be sat down ez-a-very-remarkable-coincidence!"
The Deekin turned ez white ez a sheet, and Mrs. Pogram turned ez red ez
a biled lobster, from wich I inferred that there wuz trooth in a rumor I
had heerd about the Deekin and his wife hevin a misunderstandin about a
nigger woman and her baby, about 18 years ago, wich resulted in his bein
made bald-headed in less than a minute, and the baby's mother being sold
South. The Illinoy store-keeper, uv the name uv Pollock, resoomed,--
"I wuz about askin wat them niggers is ez is nearly white?"
"Why, they'r octoroons, or seven-eighths white," sed Mrs. Pogram.
"And no Kentuckian ever marries a nigger?" inquired the store-keeper,
who I saw wuz pursooin his investigations altogether too fur.
"Never!" sed Mrs. Pogram; "we leave that to Ablishnists."
"Well, then," sed this Pollock, who, I spect, wuzn't half so innsent ez
he let on, "I see that yoo hev no objection to mixin with the nigger,
providin yoo don't do it legally; that amalgamashen don't hurt nothin,
pervidin yoo temper it with adultery. Is that the idee, Mrs. Pogram?"
Mrs. P. wuz mad, and made no reply, and Pollock persood the subjick.
"Jane there, is, I take it, about one-eighth nigger. She got her white
blood from whites, uv course; and ez there coodent be no marryin in the
biznis, there is proof positive in her face that the 8th commandment hez
bin violated about four times somewhere in this vicinity, or wherever
her maternal ancestors, on her mother's side, may hev resided. What do
yoo think about it, Deekin? Ez a Christian, woodent it be better to
marry em than to add a violation uv the commandment to the sin uv
amalgamashen? It wood redoose yoor load jest a half."
The Deekin wuz too indignant to reply, and ez it involved a pint
altogether too hefty for his limited intelleck, I took it up.
"My dear sir," I remarked, "yoo don't make the proper distinction, or,
rather, yoo don't appreciate the subjick at all. The nigger here
sustains only one character with us,--that uv a inferior bein, the slave
uv the hawty Caucashen, uv whom we are the noblest specimens; that is,
the Deekin is, he bein a Southerner. I unfortunately wuz born in the
North, and am a hawty Caucashen only by adoption. To marry a nigger wood
be to destroy our idea uv sooperiority, for we marry only our ekals. The
intercourse with em, the results uv wich yoo see indications, bein
outside uv the pale uv matrimony, is not, ez yoo wood suppose, the
result uv unbrideled licentiousnis, but is merely the assertion uv our
superiority. When the lordly Caucashen (uv whom the Deekin is wich) bids
a daughter uv Ham (wich, in the orginal Hebrew, signifies the
hind-quarter uv a hog) come to him, and she doth it not, he breaks her
head, wich inculcates obedience. One is only a slave indeed when he
surrenders all his individyooel rites. The female slave cannot be
considered ez entirely subdooed until she hez yielded to her owner
everything. To marry em wood be to elevate em; the intercourse common
among us is not a sin, it bein merely the assertion uv that superiority
wich we claim is founded on the Holy Scripter. See Onesimus, Hagar, and
Ham."
"Yes," sed the Deekin, who wuz now on the right track; "it's a assertion
uv our sooperiority; it's a dooty every white man owes to his class, and
I, for one, will alluz--"
"Let me ketch yoo at it, Gabe Pogram," shouted Mrs. P., "and I'll give
you sich a cat-haulin ez yoo never--drat yoor sooperiority, and yoor
Ham, and yoor Caucashen. Niggers is niggers, and--"
Noticin that Mrs. Pogram hedn't quite arrived at the proper pitch uv
self-sacrifice, I turned the discussion onto Sumner agin, ez a subjick
upon wich they cood all agree.
I learned that his father wuz a Dutch grocery-keeper, and his mother an
Irish washer-woman; that he run away from home at the tender age of 8,
after murderin, in cold blood, his grandparents, one uv wich wuz a Jew
and tother a Chinese; that he wuz apprenticed to the shoemakin biznis,
and hed cut the throat uv his boss and his wife, and immersed the
younger children into a biler uv scaldin water, where they were found
mostly dead seven hours afterward; that he acquired wealth a sellin
lottry tickets and brass clocks, et settry. His servants wuz redoost
Southern gentlemen wich he hed swindled into his debt, and wich, under
the laws uv Massychoosits, coodent git away, and that his intimate
friends and associates wuz niggers, with wich he sot long at the festive
board, and drunk champane; that Lucresha Mott wuz his sister, Anna
Dickinson his daughter, Fred Douglas his half-brother, and that he
kissed, habitually, every nigger child he met, and frowned so severially
onto white children ez to throw em into spasms, and other items uv
information uv wich, livin in the North, I wuz ignorant. Ez I remarked,
he isn't popular down here, and, cood hardly be elected to Congris from
this Deestrick. The tea party broke up shortly after, Pollock winkin at
me villainously ez he left the house, feelin good to think how he hed
opened a old sore. That Pollock needs watchin.
PETROLEUM V. NASBY,
Lait Paster uv the Church uv the Noo Dispensashun.