The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-11 00:00:00

A FRIGHTFUL ILLUSTRATION OF

SLAVERY.

The following is the leading editorial article in the
Last Essex Transcript (American paper) :—" Many of
our readers have probably seen a paragraph stating that
a young slave-girl was recently hanged at New Orleans,
for the crime of striking and abusing her mistress.
The religious press of the north has not, so far as we
are aware, made any comments upon this execution.
It is too busy pulling the mote out of the eye of the
Heathen, to notice the beam in our nominal Christianity
at home. Yet this case, viewed in all its aspects, is an
atrocity, which has, God be thanked, no par Ael in hea-
then lands. It is a hideous offshoot of American Re-
publicanism and American Christianity. It seems
that Pauline—a young and beautiful girl—at.
tracted the admiration of her master, and being, to
use the words of the law, his "chattel personal to all
intents and purposes whatsoever," became the victim of
his lust. So wretched is the condition of the slave-
woman, that even the brutal and licentious regard of her
master is looked upon as the highest exaltation of which
her lot is susceptible. The slave-girl in this instance,
evidently so regarded it; and, as a natural consequence,
in her new condition triumphed over and insulted her
mistress—in other words, repaid in some degree the
scorn and abuse with which her mistress bad made her
painfully familiar. The laws of the Christian State of
Alississippi inflict the punishment of death upon the
slave who lifts his or her hand against a white person.
Pauline was accused of beating her mistress, tried, and
found guilty, and condemned to die. But it was dis-
covered en the trial that she was in a condition to be-
come a mother, and her execution was delayed until
the birth of the child. She was conveyed to the prison-
cell. There for many weary months, uncheered by the
voice of kindness, alone, hopeless, desolate, she waited
for the advent of the new and quickening life within her,
which was to be the signal of her own miserable death.
And the bells there called to mass and prayer-meeting,
and Methodists sang, and Baptists immersed, and Pres-
byterians sprinkled—and young mothers smiled through
tears upon their new-born children; and maidens and
matrons of that great city sat in their cool verandahs
and talked of love and household joys and domestic
happiness—while all that dreary time, the poor slave-
girl lay on the scanty straw of her dungeon, waiting
with what agony the dear and pitying God of the white
and the black only knows, for the birth of the child of
her adulterous master. Horrible ! Was ever what
George Sand justly terms " the great martyrdom of ma-
ternity"—that fearful trial which love alone converts
into jay unspeakable endured under such condi-
tions? What was her substitute for the kind voices
and gentle soothings of affection? The harsh grating
of her prison lock —the mockinge and taunts of un-
feeling and brutal keepers What with the. poor
Pauline took the place of the hopes and joyful antici-
pations which support and solace the white mother, and
make her couch of torture happy with sweet dreams ?
The prospect of seeing the child of her sorrow, of
feeling its lips upon her bosom, of hearing its feeble
cry—alone, unvisited of its unnatural father; and
then in a few days. just when the mother's affec-
tions are strongest, and the first smile of her infant
compensates for the pangs of the past—the
ecaffhld and the hangman ! Think of that last
terrible scene—the tearing of the infant from her
arms, . the death-march to the gallows, the rope
around her delicate neck, and her long and dreadful
strueg'es—(for, attenuated and worn by physical suffer-
ing and mental sorrow, her slight frame had not sufficient
a eight left to produce the dislocation of her neck, on the
falling of the drop)—swinging there alive for nearly
half an hour—a spectacle for fiends, in the shape of hu-
manity. Mothers of New England ! such are he fruits
of slavery. 0, in the name of the blessed God, teach
your children to hate it, and to pity its victims. Petty
politicians and empty-headed Congress debaters are
vastly concerned lest the " honour of the country'
should be compromised in the matter of the Oregon
boundary. Fools !—one such horrible atrocity as this
murder of poor Pauline, " compromises" us too deeply
to warrant any further display of their patriotism. It
would compromise Paradise itself. An intelligent and
philanthropic European gentleman who was in New
friendO rle a nisnatthitsbveicitnimi
tye oaffttehre
ling the ea. curec.die
stejnsc n
God of justice !—there must be a future 8
of the revolting affair, exclaims, " Goat, of goo
t g°,
the wrongs of this.
I am almost tempted to say, there
j
must be a future state, or no God I
detailing
in
.a letter to a
.
',3 redress

ridincigtUyea.witlh,l, Every avenuesen tsentence
tee
nmdt.feoidlitary and police, that the
ilebdyEotnhe::AEel:
atE
the place
people were completely excluded frown all approach to the
walked barefooted, and with a black veil o
the prison across the garden of the Luxembour, on leavinp
be.Grivel, fel
whom he seemed to have formed a sort of affection, and it;
which;c
grlsXir hxolEsa?
hiucCeni omiv:U:kolaiuseitiisttpeoridi!aa..rneiß.caerarai, :.iipaei rt
by
conformity
,obn,
whose hands he was quite docile. 0
. n arriving at the place co
execution, he was at once placed
p,Tpylint)aNn was guillotined PIERRE
upon the guillotine, and it
a moment all was over.
The King was, according to •
public accounts, disposed to
wards mercy, for he received
M D - •
ulerg:er with great Kind.
ness when he presented L M.
sent for the Chancellor ecorute's petition, and immediatels
and Minister of Justice ; but the re..
cult shows that those
advising his Majesty
to pers9nages could not see any ground fen
obi IvhCgd:.
sa( ly
face, 1 im o rTinr ioEnrig
interfere with thl execution of tti gentence.