The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-26 00:00:00

THE FATE OF A HANDSOME SLAVE.

(Pros Key I. Owle Tosees Cabin.)

• Among those unfortunates guilty of loving free-
dom too well, was a beautiful young quadroon girl, named
Emily Russell, whose mother is now living in New York.
The writer has seen and conversed with her. She is a pious
woman, highly esteemed and respected, a member of a
Christian church.

By the avails of her own industry she parchased her free-
dom, and also redeemed from bondage some ..f her chil-
dren. Emily was a resident of Washiugton, I) C.' a place
which belongs not to any State, but to the United States;
and there, under the laws of the United Static, she was
held as a slave. She was of a gentle disposition and &wi-
sh.. manners; she had been early touched with a sense of.
religious things, and was on the very point of uniting her-
self to the Christian church ; but her heart yearned after
her widowed mother and after freedom, and so, on the
fatal night when all the other poor victims fought escape
by the Pearl, the child Emily went also among them.
They were taken. Thesin of the poor girl was inexpiable.
• Because she longed for her mother's arms and fur liberty,
she could not be forgiven. Nothing would do for stack a
sin, but to throw her into the hands of the trader. She
also was thrown into Bruin and Hill's goal, in Alexandria.
Her poor mother in New York received the following
letter from her. Read it, Christian mother, and think
, what if your daughter had written it to you!
Alexandria, Jan. 22, 1850.
" My dear Mother, I take this opportunity of writing you
a few lines, to inform you that I sin in Bruin's Jail, awl
Aunt Sally, and all of her children, al.d Aunt Ilagar and
all her children, and grandmother is almost crazy. My
dear mother, will you please to come on as soon as you ran ?
I expect to go away very shortly. 0, mother! my dear
mother ! come now and *ee your distressed and heart-
broken daughter one. noire ! Mother, my deur mother !
do not forsake me, fur I feel desolate ! Ph use to tome now.
Your daughter, " Emmy itusseLL.
" To Mrs. Nancy Csrtwrigbt, New York.
P S. If you du nut come as far as Alaatilria, come to
Washington, and do what you can."
That biter, blotted and tear soiled, was brought by this
poor washerwoman to some Christian friends in New York,
and *hewn to them. " What do you suppose iliry will ssk
for her ?" was her question. All that she had—her little
house, her little furniture, her small earnings—all these
poor Nancy was willing to throw in ; but all these were but
as a drop to the bucket.
The first thing to be done, then, was to ascertain what
Emily could be redeemed for ; and, as it may be an inte-
resting item of American trade, we give the reply of the
traders in full:

"Alexandria, Jen. 31, 1850.
"Dear Sir,—When I received your letter I had not
bought the negroes you spoke of, but since that tient, I have
bought them. All I have to s►y about the matt, r is, that
we paid very high for the negroes, and cann.t afford to sell
the girl Emily fur less than eighteen hu•.dred doll irs. This I
may teem a high price to you, but, cotton being very high,
consequently slaves are high. We have two or three offers
for Emily from gentlemen from the south. She is said to
lie the tiuest•louking woman in this country. As fur Hagar
and her seven children, we will take two thousand tire
hundred dollars fur them. Sally and her four children, we
will take for them two thousand eight honored dollars. You
may seem a little surprised at the difference in wices, but •
the difference in the negroes makes the uiff, renee in price.
We expect to start south with the negroes on the Bib Feb
rusry, and if you intend to do anything, you had better do
it soon.—Yours respectfully, " ifitUlN & Hut."
This letter clime to New York before the case of the Ed-
mooeuns had called the attention of the community to t►is
sulject. The enormous price asked entirely di,cuuraged
effort, and before anything of importance was done they
heard that the cads had departed, with Emily in it.
Hear, 0 heavens! and give ear, 0 earth ! lat t it be
known, in all the countries of the earth, that the prier, of a
besutiful Christian girl in America, when she is art up to
be sold to a life of abauae, is from eighten hundred to two
thousand dollars ; and yet, judicatories in the church of
Christ have said, in solemn conclave,that American slavery•
as it is in no evil ! •

From the table of the sacrament and from the sanctuary
of the church of Christ this girl was torn away, because
her beauty was • saleable article in the dare-market in
New Orleans !

Perhaps some northern apologist fur slavery will say she
was kindly treated here—not handcuffed by the wrist to •
chain, and forced to walk, as articles less choice are ; that a
waggon was provided, and that she rode; and that food
abundunt was given her to eat, and that her clothing was
warm and comfortable, and therefore no harm was done.
We have heard it told us, again and again, that there is no
harm in slavery, gent is only warm enough, and full-fed,
and comfortable. It is true that the slave-woman has no
protection from the foulest dishonour and the utmost insult
that can be offered to womanhood—none whatever in law
or gospel; but so long as she has enough to eat and wear,
our Christian fathers and mothers tell us it is not so bad
Poor Emily could not think so. There was no eye to
pity, and none to help. The food of her accursed lot did
not nourish her; the wannest clothing could not keep the
chill of slavery from her heart. In the middle of the over-
land passage, sick, weary, heart-broken, the child laid her
down and died. By that lone pillow there was no
mother ; but there was one Friend,wbo loveth at all times,
who is Omer tt an a brother. Could our eyes be touched
by the seal of faith, where others see oily the lonely wil.
deem 111 and the dying girl, we, perhap., should see one
clothed in celestial beauty, waiting (or that abort agony to
Ise over, that He might redeem her from all iniquity, and
present her faultless before the presence of his Unice with
exceeding joy!
Even the hard-hearted trader was touched with hes sad
fate, and we are credibly informed that he said he was sorry
he had taken her.

Bruin and Hill wrote to New York that the girl Emily
was dead. The Quaker, Witham Mimed, went with the
letter, to break the news to h-r mother. Since she had
given up all hope of redeeming her daughter from the
dreadful doom to which she had been sold, the helpless
mother had drooped like a stricken woman. She no longer
lifted ap her head, or seemed to take any interest in life.
When Mr. Earned called on her, she asked, eagerly,
" Have you heard anything from my daughter t"
" Yes, I have," was the reply, " a letter from Bruin and

"And what is the news 2"
He thought beet to give a direct answer,—" Easily is
dead."

The poor mother duped her hinds, and looking upwards,
said, " The Lord be thanked ! He has heard my prayers at
last!"

And, now, will it be said this is au exceptional case—it
happens one time in a thousand ? Though we know that
this is the bulest of falsehoods, and that the case is only a
specimen of what is acting every day in the American
slave trade, yet, for argument's sake, let us, for muse, admit
it to be true. If only once in this nation, under the pro-
tection of our law, a Christian girl had been torn from the
altar and the cornmaniowtable, and cold to foulest shame
and dishonour, would that have been a light sill ?

• TM words of Qs °sores Assail Costerawse ; Resolved, • nil
dowry, so ts abstain •.MUnitad Stales, Is na a moral evil."

HAVING ST THE " INSIDERS."

When the nn was up and we had changed horses
two or three times, under the bright blue sky, breathing
the crisp morning air as the coach rolled up and down bill
over the white snow, we were all mad with joy, Bleak
Monday though it was. Buttons—who got terribly teased
and knocked about at school because he was a queer fellow,
though we all liked him—Buttons bad his turn at the pea-
shooter, and after a successful combat with a gips y woman,
his shot telling well about her nose and pipe, nothing far-
ther offered itself. Suddenly Buttons looked mysterious,
and bent over to us, whispering " Let's have at the in-
siders ! " Glorious lateens* dangerous game, we all rushed
into enjoyment of the bold suggestion. Buttons, at the
end of the seat, had the coach window with a little twist of
his body fairly within range ; he charged heavily his
wrath-produeing tube, drew a good mouthful of breath,
aimed at the open window, and discharged his piece at ran-
dom. The shot must hive told with terrible effect. In-
stantly. a head puiple with wrath was thrust out of
the window with so much abruptness, that the hat
fell out into the snow, and the coach was stopped
that the guard might pick it up. There was a
volley of words sent back for our volley of peas,
among which came often repeated the significant question,
" Coachman, what school are those boys going to ?" The
coach started again while the coachman made a sound as of
answering, but the cold air soon caused the dreaded face to
be drawn back. "He has pulled up the window," said
Buttons, grinning. " Don't get us into unable," said
Phipps to the coachman. The coachman looked stern, but
I saw that he meant kindness. " I tell you what," said
Buttons, " when we change hones nest tell him I did
it, and beg his pardon. I don't care if he cuffs me." We
agreed th.t nothing could be fairer than that, and when
the coach stopped). at the Robin Hood, the old gentle-
man g.it out and looked up at us viciously. Buttons—who
had thought twice about the cuffing—spoke au apology
down to him from his seat on the coach top. " Come
down then, you young rascal, and let me punish you,"
cried the gentleman. Buttons began immediately to get
down in a very simple-minded way ; but the old gentle-
man, when he got down, to the amazement of us all, gave
him a shilling and told him to get up again. Pullet cried
halves over Buttons's shilling because the pea-shooter had
made it, and the pes-shooter was his. Buttons agreed
readily to that reasoning, and paid Pullet a sixpence.—
Dickens's "Household Words."

HURRICANE AT HARSElLLEB.—Marseilles on Sun-
day last was visited by a perfect hurricane. All the ves-
sels at anchor in the new port sustained damage. One
brig drove from her anchors and experienced oon•iderahle
injury ; and another vessel, laden with coal, sunk. The
English steamer Caradoo also dragged her anchors, and
was obliged to get up her steam before she brought up.
In the town the damage done was immense ; tiles and
chimney pots were flying in alt directions. At the corner
of the Rue Canebiere a part of the front of a large print
shop was blown in, and the con,ents of the window se it•
' tered to the winds. A large building in wood, constructed
with great lightness and elegance as a riding school and
circus, was completely levelled to the ground, and a great
part of it was thrown into the street. Fortunately the
lower part of the pudding, in which were the stables, re-
mained firm, and nuns of the bursas s. ere injured. Just at
the same moment that the circus was tkrown down, the
third story of a house building in the Rue St. Nicholas
was blown into the street with n tremendous crash, but
fortunately no one was passing at the time. A number of
persons were blown down in the streets by the violence of
the tempest, but no one met with any serious injury.