_To the Editor of the Boston Journal_:
[The following remarkable poem was sent me from the South by a friend,
who informs me that the author of it was a slave named Mingo, a man of
wonderful talents, and on that account oppressed by his master. While
in the slave-prison, he penciled this poetic gem on one of the beams,
which was afterwards found and copied. My friend adds that Mingo did
escape, at night, but was recaptured and destroyed by the bloodhounds.
My friend promises to send other poems of his, which, he says, are in
possession of Mingo’s aged wife.]