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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
CONTENTS
THE STORY OF ABE.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE.
BOOK GOSSIP.
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
STOCK EXCHANGE MORALITY.
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
LONG AGO.
No. 52.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1884.
THE STORY OF ABE.
Those who profess to know all about slaverywill tell you that the negro was a thousand timeshappier as a slave than he is as a freeman. Thismay be true of some of the race; we do notenter into the question. The field-hand wasin general an entirely irresponsible creature.He belonged to his master as thoroughly as thedogs and horses did, and he was of infinitelyless importance. He had his daily task and hisdaily rations; he had also, if owned by a kindmaster, his little amusements, chief of whichwere the dance and the camp-meeting. Such alife would naturally not inspire one with anyvery high ambition. Give the plantation negrohis hoe-cake and his bit of fat pork, his banjo,and the privilege of telling his experience to anunlimited chorus of ‘Halleluiahs!’ and ‘Bressde Lords!’ and you gave him perfect bliss. Ifthe white man was his oppressor, he seldomknew it. ‘De family’ were, except in rare cases,admired and revered. And these poor creatureswho did not own themselves, assumed and feltan air of proud proprietorship when speaking ofthe glories of their master’s state, and speciallyof each ‘young mas’r’ and ‘lily miss.’ ‘Youngmas’r’ was at once their tyrant and their darling.I have heard a wedding ceremony wound up with,‘Hark, from de tombs a doleful sound!’ withall its concomitant tears and groans, because‘Marse Harry’ had so ordered.
This state of things by no means came to anend with the civil war. Long after the slaveswere freemen, and the broad acres had changedowners, and ‘old mas’r’ had fallen in battle ordied broken-hearted, all that were left of theproud old name were still ‘de family’ to thoseloving hearts. While the writer lived in one ofthe border towns of Virginia, the mother of oneof her maids appeared one day to ask for largess.‘We’se done goin’ to hab a party, Miss Anne,’said she; ‘an’ some ob de ladies dey gibs meflour; an’ some, eggs; an’ some, sugar; an’ olemissis she would a’ gib me a whole great bigcake, but I up an’ tole her I had one.—It wasa lie,’ she explained earnestly, fearing I wouldthink further gifts unnecessary; ‘but some o’dem pore wh