The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-06 00:00:00

LITEIL47'URE.

- -

White and Black.

A Story of the Southern States.

3 vols. Hunt Lind Blackett.

This is au interesting work at the present time,
as it alludes to the slavery question in its extent of
sad details and fearful sufferings. The story is told
told with great skill, and the characters introduced
are described so naturally, and in seine instances
are rendered so attractive, that the narrative is
divested of the painful feelings it might otherwise
have produced as to deter many from its perusal.
One of the chief merits of the work in its con-
structive capacity is the fair account given of the
southern families. We are shown that it is the
system that is wrong, not the people, and that all
are trained from infancy to regard tyranny as
just, and to see cruelty considered a part of the
day's business, when the eager observation of
childhood and the dawning intelligence of youth
only behold as a system what is a sin, and
watch the parents and friends whom they look
up to pursuing the trade in human creatures, how
can they be called callous for not thinking
otherwise ? Constance Annersley was the gover-
ness in the family of Col. Burgoyne, at Chestnut
Brook, and for a time all went smoothly. Fasci-
nated by the ease and grace of the refined and
cultivated members of the household, she thought
the tragic tales of which she had been told were
exaggerated, and that slavery might exist without
any very serious trouble arising. Soon the fair
vision was overcast, and she awoke from her de-
lusion to a dark reality. Those who appeared
the most polished in the drawing-room, the most
affectionate in the family circle, when they stoad
forth as masters of slaves, their whole nature
underwent a change. The manner in which
Mayor conducted himself towards Jonas exhibits,
in a strong manner, the evils that accrue from the
slave children of the planters. Through all the
various branches of the family these evils run ; thus
Mayor rendered his young wife almost frantic by
cruel conduct, and he had to answer for the crimes
that she committed in the frenzied rage to which
he had worked her. Irene, the slave daughter of
Mr. Morton, is a happy idea of the miseries and
misfortunes that are sown broadcast over the land
where such evils abound and are called law. Here
was a young girl who was reared in luxury, and
taught to consider herself a lady, trained, indeed,
in the worship and reverence of the great institu-
tion of slavery. When her father married she was
sent, under the care of her governess, to visit in a
distant city that lady's relations. This was
thought strange by many ; but the girl herself
only believed it to be the foresight of her
father to provide her amusement, while he was en-
grossed with his new marriage. She was unde-
ceived in a terrible manner. Hastening home to
see her father, whom she thought was forgetting
her, she was seized at a station by that father's
overseer, who proclaimed to the crowd around them
that she was a slave, the child of a slave, and thus
she was to be sold to the nearest bidder, that the
jealousy of the new Mrs. Morton might not be
aroused by her beauty and grace. The sub-
sequent perils and perplexities that the
beautiful girl went through are very forcibly told,
and the last sad paragraph, telling us that rumour
whispered she had again been sold among a lot of
slaves, points its own solemn warning that no inter-
vention of friends, no care of strangers, no force of
persuasion, no power of fighting, ever can avail to
stem the torrent that sweeps with deadly might
and irresistible speed into the dark abyss. Irene's
was, indeed, a sad tale; but she stands the figura-
tive emblem, the exemplifying instance of thou-
sands of her race and kin. Jonas, almost
killed with cruel tortures, sold away to
distant plantations, for ever taking leave of his wife
and children, is another type of myriads like unto
him; Clara's infant child, thrown in to make up the
bargain between master and agent, is another proof,
how agonising, those who know a mother's feel-
ings may imagine. The writer of this tale has done
his utmost to show us the full significance of the
beautiful lines of the poet—Cowper in his verses on
"The African Slaves,"
" Dusky limbs, and dark complexion,
Cannot alter nature's claim ;
Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in White and Black the same."
Again, when Eleanor Burgoyne, animated no doubt
by good intentions, assembles her Sunday class to
dilate to them upon their duties, one could fancy
that they might reply to their teacher in this
strain :

" Is there, as you sometimes tell us,
Is there One who dwells on high ?
Does Ho bid you buy and sell us,
Looking from His Throne, the sky ?"
For a further and more particular illustration of
the ills of the nefarious system, we need only read
the passage that describes the arrival of the slave
ship fraught with her human cargo. The spectacle
was appalling ; and no one emu wonder that, at
its view, the inveterate upholder of slavery
renounced his opinions and withdrew his
strenuous support from the system that carried on
such traffic, and countenanced such horrors.
Chauncey Burgoyne is a fine character, full of chi-
valrous sentiment and animated by noble im-
pulses. It was the theory, not the practice, he
upheld, and when once he had visual demonstra-
tion of its excesses he turned from it, and became
as eager for the abolitionists as before he had been
against them. The kindness of his nature was
shown in befriending the emissary of the North,
Maxwell, when he was hunted down by Chauncey's
own friends and neighbours. He also was called
foolishly lenient to his own slaves in his domain at
West Creek. It is satisfactory to know that his
brightest hours were his last ; and if it is sad to
think of his bride as a widow, and his life cut
down in the promise and glory of its opening, still
he died in a good cause, and he fell fighting for the
oppressed and persecuted. He could have had no
nobler death on any battle-field renowned in story,
and no better inscription could be recorded for his
after-praise than that he redeemed the errors of his
early days by his last effort and his final struggle.
It cost him his life, but it softened his past
faults and crowned his memory with a
glory that lived beyond the grave. This work
should be perused with attention, as it conveys in
a clear manner the worst features of the slave-system
as it affects the general state of soeiety. It does
not exhibit any great exaggeration in its statements,
but again and again sets forth the personal merits
of those who live under the pernicious influence of
such social wrongs and such evil customs.
Another strong point is the expense and an-
noyance to which the planters are con-
stantly subjected in watching for sedition,
capturing runaways, driving away abolitionists,
the danger they incur from disaffected outcasts, and
the nightly dread of an outbreak which may over-
whelm the family of the masters. Here human
nature vindicates itself, and the oppressor is assailed
in his stronghold. The perils he can confront him-
self in the pride of his manhood may be too much
for the delicate wife and tender children who con-
stitute his home. A state of society which tolerates
such crime, cruelty, and injustice, is a disgrace
to a civilised land, and the chivalry of which
they boast is a sham and a delusion. One of
the first duties of the knights who made
memorable the word was to assail tyrants
and protect the oppressed wherever found,
and those who can sympathise with re-
volutions that overthrew kings abroad, and
encourage killing by inches in human traffic at
home, are inconsistent and absurd to the last
degree. " White and Black " as a tale of the
Times is a good index to refer to, and the skill
and ingenuity which abound in its descriptive
pages and exist in full force in its eloquent
passages, combine to claim for it regard and
ensure it a welcome among those whose boast is,
that no slaves can touch their shores without
being as free as the air they breathe. The spirit
which animates the work is a good one, and thus it
has a higher motive than amusement, and a better
end than instruction in view, ',if it makes any
reader think more of those outcast and oppressed
children of humanity, the much-ailicted sons of
the African race. Surely their Maker beholds
their wrongs and will one day call their
persecutors to account. This attempt to evidence
their sad state deserves success, and it is to be trusted
that its end will be gained in the attention it meets
with and the converts it may make, leading those
who were indifferent to the cause to dwell on the
magnitude of the evils, and teaching those who were
ignorant of the misery to sympathise with the suf-
ferings of Slavery.

Zadkiers New Quarterly.
The initial number of Zadkiel's new. sixpenny
quarterly, The Voice of the Stars, duly made its
appearance on the Ist of January, in company with
the magazines. The contents are of course, as any
one might have anticipated, of a very singular cha-
racter. They are not only singular, however,
but they are plural into the bargain. They are
more numerous and more varied than we should
have expected. Compressed within thirty-two
pages there are no less than sixteen contributions.
The great astrologers preliminary address to his
readers—readers now, he reminds the public, for
thirty-one consecutive years—cannot fail to be;perused by them with some degree of curiosity. It
is written in a solemn and austere tone, calculated
to impress those. who are numbered among the
forty thousand inquiring purchasers of Zadkiers
Almanack. An " Ode to Darkness," at page 17, is
subscribed by initials as mystical in every way we
would premise as the awful signature of the famous
Zadkiel Tao 'i'so himself! There are some very
11 curious papers in this initial number of The Voice
(of the 'Stars, upon themes as attractive and yet
recondite as " The Indian Zodiac and Brahman