The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1853-02-24


Our hearts are open 10 the kind OF you memo
rial We are happy TO acknowledge the bonds OF "a
common origin, common falih and we may adu, d
common language Nor do we question you n sa
the Office OF counsellors assumed towards your Aecah
sisters We do, however doubt the statements anu
serons which have made this mode OF moving the minds
OF the American people seem 10 you needfui ana wise
therefore we eneat your calm and sisery attention 10
the following facts connected with the subject oil negro
slavery IN our land
II American slavery be the horrld system oil cruelty,
ignorance, and wickedness represented by some writer's
OF fiction and paid dsiamers OF our institutions now nSp
pens il that those who have been reared IN It's MIDST
when freed and planted in Africa al once exhibit sucn
capacity for selfgoyemment and sell educauon ana gel
such examples of good morals Not only do these peo
ole sustain and govern themselves they are improving
all around them, acting as Christian educators ana eAen
pars of the domestic virtues to myrlads OF hea.hen ~
whose midst they live. Have the negroes under bHsh
care al Sierra Leone made similar progress Ia improve
ment Do the free coored subjects OF Bnlaln IN the
West Indies show the capacity industry ana
manifested by the Lberans, whose training was IN the
school of American servtude Nor have the Des' spec
mems of this uteage been sent out Thousands and tens
OF thousands of cOored servants IN the southern States
are church members instructed IN their duties by ial'hiu
Christian teachers, and the children are trained IN Tue
| fear and love of God.
We might dwell on the comforts of food enough. and
| freedom from care which American slaves enjoy, as Or
Charles Lyel and other English writers acknowledge
in degree reached by the peasantry OF Great Br-
tain but we do seek TO disguise the evils and dan
gers of the SYSTEM because free institutions and tue
habits of people have, happily ightened the chain
above the coloed in any other land But whatever
are its evils or dangersto the master more oppressive
than to the seryanthe Americans will themselves be
responsible. The of republic do not invite nor
admit any foreign interference in their State policy or
domestic concerns In this decision we women are IN
unison with our legislators We believe our own coun-
trymen are the best judges of this question But the
women of England really desire to help us, there is
field in which their charity may find full scope, We en-
you TO aid providing means and ways lot the IN
strucon and comott of the masses in your own land
Pardon when we say you seem little aware, Chris
tian women of England. while shedding tender tears
over the fictitious of imaginary negroes in America
OF the real condition OF the poor white people your
country;
dres :; do not therefore waste compassion upon
the descriptions of your novelists however vvldy set
FORTH but refer to the unvarnshed statements laid be-
fore Parliament by Dr. Souhwood Smith and other re-
sponsble commissioners, the details brought TO light by
the benevolent exertions OF Lord Ashley and the re-
searches of Henry Mayhem. These disclosures do wiring
hearts with pain and Christians and human beings
socitous to this awful state OF things changed
| in your country.
Ii would be impossible, in this paper TO set forth the
mseries of the "London poor, described by Henry
Mayhew; how there thousands thousands drag out
exisence-it cannot be called life-n utter desutution,
than heathenism never having heard OF the
CHRISTIANS God caring nothing for the 'sancty OF mar
rage" nor needing any obligations" the Bible, which
they see, and could not read enoins:
The descriptions gwen BY DR. Southwood Smith OF the
abodes Of the London poor furnish pictures OF horror
cueltes pTactised in America could parallel because
such presidential dens could not be found or made the
will give his own words to The result, emitting the
shocking details
The result is the If twenty or thirty thousand
Of these people annually taken out OF these wetched
dwellings aud put death. | now speaking OF what
silently and surely takes place in the metropolis alone, and
do not include IN h,s estimate Tue numoeis .na, peasa
villages OF this kingdom has been stated that The an.
nual slaughter in England and Wales from Preventabe
causes OF phus fever which persons in the vigor
otie is double the amount Of what was red IN the al
rated this great battle against people is
1t, because il takes place every year"
No planters slaves, not even those of the tabled
Legree, reduced to the miserable condition OF
the apprentices at Northampton South Safordshlre"
as thus set forth in the Commissioners Report the
Employment of Children in the Iron trade" &c:
Their thin hands ,ong al the vice for fourteen six
teen aud hours OF the twenty four; yet, with
all their tOl, clothed in rags, sh,yerng with cold, half
starved fed oa beaten, kicked, abused, struck with
locks, bars, hammers, or other heavy toos-burn with
s syq S''' - 20 0000 runs 00"" = -" p''''S "s'
One other short extract from speech Of Lord Ashleys
| 10 complete the picture:
You engage children from their earliest years In long,
painful, and distressing employments when they have
approached manhood. they have outgrown their employ
menu they are turned upon the world, without moral or
professional educaton-the business they learned
piamsking, for instance, ava them no,hingat fourteen
or fifteen To procure honest Livelihood becomes al
most impossible the Of prisons win tell you, the
relieving officers will tell you, that the vicious to
punder and prostitution, the rest sink down into hopeless
pauperism."
Even 10 this awful state OF things darker and more ap
palling records might be added-such the prevalence
OF niancide and chld-murder among the poor in Eng.
land-mothers who would, savage state, peril
their lives for their little ones, degraded below bruies by
the blank ignorance and cruel suterlngs OF their CASTE
poison their babes 10 obtain the burial fees We
beseech YOU by all that womanhood holds dear, by all
that Christianity enjons TO seach out the OF
these deep mseres and If you cannot prevent such
unnatural crimes There is also class OF slaves around
you needing 10 be fitted for emancipation May not
call those slaves, whom that memorable master, Want
sends to our shores separating families, tearing the young
girl from her mothers arms, and banishing her 10
dwell where her aged parent shall never again behold
her-eaying the young mother TO weep alone her
helpless infant, while the father must 20 TO die in
foreign ditch, perhaps forget her beyond the ocean,
Those ugityes from your land here, poor igno-
rant and often black with the vices OF your ciyiZa
ton, thus adding almost ntoerable weight 10 the bur
den our citizens must bear in educating the for
| freedom and self-government The whole number Of
persons convicted OF crime in the United States was in
1850, about TvgsTY-sIvrs THOUSAND, of whom FOUR
TEEN THOUSAND WERE roREicsERs-far the greater por
ton OF these British subjects, who bad been trained
from infancy TO adult age under British Institutions Can
we wonder at their degradation, when consider that
though over six hundred years have elapsed since the
English nobility gained the freedom OF their Magma
ion made for national education, and the people arc
doomed 10 life of mental darkness in addition 10 hard
labor We quote British authority the hfty-sirth vol
ume OF the Foreign Quarterly add Westminster Re.
view" page 81, has the following melancholy comics
! SION:
In England ono-ha OF the people neither read nor
write and IN many OF our agricultural districts studded
with churches, the pessintry Eavags
and isras as those Of Campegna or the Basque prov