The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-10-20 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

A NEGRO BEAU IN GALVESTON, TEXAS

(From Simmonds's Colonial Magazine.)
One morning I was out early shooting on the bayou,
and Tom was somewhere in the neighbourhood, along
with a little boy, watching me. As luck would have it, I
brought down two roseate spoonbills at one shot. Tom
dashed into the mud and water to fetch them out ; and,
on bringing them to me, he remarked—
" That bes' shot I ebber see in my life !" (He spoke
very good English for a negro.) " I see many men as
calls 'emselves sportsmen come up here to shoot, but
nebber see sich a thing as that. I s'pose missis is to hab
one of these ?"

" Certainly." said I ; " take them both to your mis-
tress, with my compliments."
Tom was highly pleased, and went off, but, after break-
fast, came into our house with a dish of cucumbers and
thanks.

" Now, Tom," said I, " will you have a drop of
whisky-and-water?" for although to give another man's
slave drink is legally a punishable crime, his master and
I were oa terms which set all such peccadilloes aside.
" In a bit, if you please, massa ; but I jus' want say
afore, what a capital shot that was you made this morn-
ing !—Yah, ah !—Nebber saw better in my life ; no, not
in all my life! You see that little boy I talk !o? Well,
what you think I say to him ?—Yah, ah !—I say this,
says I. ' Massa Hooton 's a berry good 'un,' says I,—
yah, ah,—` a berry good 'tin, though he be a berry little
'un /' Yah, ah! ah, ah, ah!"
Tom was now ready for his cold toddy. While dis.
,Fussing it, he told me how he had been to chapel (the
negroes' chapel) one Sunday a short time before, and
how Father Peter, the preacher, delivered a sermon so
long that it kept them all much after dinner-hour. It
was not even yet completed, when he said—" And now,
dear sisters and bredren, in de sebenteent place, I hab to
warn you—but I shan't keep you long, bekos it 's high
time we abjurned to dinner—"
" You all right dere, Father Peter !" exclaimed Tom,
" so I'll be off!"

Whereupon Tom added, " I get up on my seat, and
habbin two ladies on my arms, I walk straight out, and
eberybody following me a•lifl'in !"
The mention of the " two ladies on his arms," re-
minded Mrs. H. of a white handkerchief which had been
picked up, and was supposed to belong to Tom. The
fact was this :—Some few days before, we had been to
visit a friend in the town, before whose garden-:ate this
handkerchief bad, one Sunday afternoon, been found.
The lady of the house could not find an owner for it;
but afterwards recollecting that she had seen Tom (who,
by the bye, was the black beau of Galveston) pass by
some short time previously, concluded it might possibly
belong to him, and, therefore, placed it in Mrs. H. 's
hands for restoration in case it proved so. Tom looked
at it—

" Yah, ah! mine, to be sure—be sure it is! Now look
you, Missis Hooton, I tell you how it is, and all about
it :—You find him in d' road by Missis Silbersides'?"

- .
" She found it, Tom, and asked me to give it to you if
it should prove to be yours."
" Mine !—ob course he 's mine, to be sure !—and now
I tell you all 'bout it. You see, on Sunday afternoon I
bas walking along wi' two ladies, and habbin 'casion to
use my hankercher, I took him out and dropped him.
But as there was a lady on each arm, ob course, ma'am,
you see it would be berg ungenteel to let go an' stop to
pick him up again; so I pass by, thinking it berry possi-
ble that Missis Silbersides, or some of her people there-
about, might find him, and perhaps wash him for me,
and send him again when they come t find out who he
b'long'd to."
" But what if it had been lost? "
" That case, ma'am, I care nothin"bout him, 'cos I
wouldn't insult any lady 'bout a hankereher."
The " ladies" were of course black slaves, like himself.
Poor Tom ! h 6 was some time afterwards sold from our
neighbour's to a merchant in the town for seven hundred
dollars ; and as he much liked his former place, he became
very crestfallen. Besides, be did not like the idea of being
sold for so little. He declared indignantly to an indivi-
dual who coat sely accosted him on the subject, that he
had known the time when he fetched a thousand in New
Or:eans ! That was after be left " Old Virginny," where
he was raised.
Notwithstanding all that has been so confidently assert-
ed to the contrary, the purchase and sale of slaves are just
as common in Texas as the transfer, for pecuniary consi-
derations, of any kind of animal. With reference to the
importation of native Africans I cannot so confidently
speak, having enjoyed no opportunities for the acquisition
of facts bearing conclusively upon that subject.