Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1853-01-25
From the London british Army Dispatch OF Dec. !;
The Uncle Toms Cabin Mania.


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PHYSICIAN, HEAL TlYsELF!
We have not reviewed Uncle TOMS Cabin,
chiefly because we felt our views of the tendency
and nature of that work TO be so hostile that we
could scarcely judge of it in a proper critical man.
ner. We believe it to possess a certain melodra-
matte power. equal in pathos to the "Green Bush
esq at the Adelphi, and in incident to a popular
novel something between the style of Eugene Sue
and George Reynolds. But we believe it also to
be devoid oil truth, principle, reality, and that its
tendencies are highly miSchievouSa and detrimental
to the interests of mankind. In saying this, we
entirely acquit its authoress, Mrs. Stowe, of any
evil desire, any wicked feeling, or intended false
hood: That lady, for all we know, may be a most
excellent as she IS undoubtedly a very talented
person. We fully give her credit for good mo-
tves, we doubt not that she believes herself en-
trusted with a nilsson, as much rs did ever any
"eminent female" from Maria Leczinska to Jo-
hanna Sonthcote. We can imagine her TO be en-
dowed with an awful sense of womanhood, and to
make-lt ever she condescended to such task,
since the second edition of her book was sold
about the worst dumplings that were ever placed
upon a dirty table-cloth IN a slovenly parlor. We
can imagine that she writes a big, s%crawling hand,
with the letters all backwards, avoiding neatness
with pains-tanlng preciSion-her voice is probably
harsh, her attitude imposing, and she will, or does,
wear her own grey hair i'll the mother-of-a-natio
style. Still we think it a great pity that she did
not do anything rather than what she has done,
with all the busy enthusiasm of a woman III
breaches.
WHen, some Time ago, long Nefore The work was
known in England, we CHANGED to take it up in
the apartment OF an American friend, we stumbled
upon a passage of the first force in cant and nom
sense. 1t was in the style of those anti slavery
African coast blockade tracts, which we remember
abounded some years since, and which assisted i'll
betraylng to distinction so many brave English
seamen; and cost the lives of SO many unhappy
negroes. For, 1t is our deliberate opinion, that
more crime, ahomination ofevery kind, loss oflife,
and misery, have been caused, by our intervention,
TO the negro race, than thrice the number OF years
would have Witnessed had slavery been still the
law of Europe and all America, and been allowed
It's full fling throughout the whole civilized world.
10 avoid our cruisers what forced marches and
confined Stowage have been adopted! How many
unfortunate blacks have been killed by our grape
and round shot? How many put out of the way
10 tighten the flying SLAYER, or avoid detection!-
While we, the philanthropistS, have furnished the
slave monarch, with arms to rake them captive
guns, pistols, and cutlasSes to hunt
down ths unfortunate wretcheS, for whom hypoc-
IiSy prays, while neglecting the Hindoo and Starv-
ing the white man! Philanthropy, too, SweetenS
her tea with slaye-grown sugar, refined by negro
blood, at the expense of West India proprietorS.
How IS the cotton raised, let us ask, that sup
plies the raw material for the white slaves of Man
chester! All such points a woman never thinks
of, and if she hears them, cannot understand. We
will be bound there Is no peg in Harriet's heal
whereon "to hang an interference e." She sips her
tea and cries aloud, '1S he not q man and n broth
err" But this is pardonable. We cannot excuse
the Duchess of Sutherland and all those fine Ia
dies round whom thousands of their fellow coun-
trywomen toll unaided-pale daughters of con-
SUMPTION, whose threads of life are woven in the
lace adjoining the dazzling bosom of female PHI.
lanthropy at a Drawing room. What are Hoods
poems compared TO Uncle Toms Cabin? Nothing.
Wretched inconsistency of conduct! Miserable
contradiction of sympathy What Tears must
angels weep at these fantastical follieS of mam-
However,, we are straying from our intention
we MAINTAIN that this one-Sided representation is
creating mischief between Great Britain and the
United States, which nothing can remedy, no trea-
ties obviate, no stateSma nship hereafter avoid. We
may say that the SicklY interference OF our fine
LADIES' many, my, most of whom, would shrink
from the contact of adying needle-woman on their
door steps, and daily pnss unheeding the rniseries
oil thousands OF white women, is an excess of fol-
ly and hypocrisy, that will be the curse of freedom
tine world. We question the motives
of these ladies. Among them we see the names
OF some not renowned for matronly virtues, but
no orlous for vanity, ~frivolty, and fashion-that
comprehensive word, which includes so much So
cial evil.
On the stage,..this work, aided by the morbid ia
lent OF its admirers, and the exquisite cleverness
OF such actors and actresses as are now electrifying
an Adelphi audience, is doing a mischief which a
century cannot repair. Let the Lord Chamberlain
look to tins. We are playing the part of the dcs-
pot and the priest by insulting the United States of
What have we to do with the internal
affairs of the American Republic? Why are we
SaaSSSAaASu LIE ! HVk IHC 4llIC-
rlcans send out here and write n book which shall
tell the truth-ay, one half the truth of London
city; let them get up a drama, whose scene shall
be IN Lancashire let them make out Britons to be
task-masters, without one redeeming point, over
emasculated millions OF British work-people,
sinews they stretch and whose bones they
grind down in the name of commerce. Let them
send 10 India or Borneo. Let them dramatis War
rem Hastings and Raiah Brooke. Let them throw
light on the Outram business, with its oppression
and poisonlngs, together with the falsehoods of
suppression and assertion on the part of the East
India Company. Let them paint famine in Ire
land. For each American Legree they shall easily
find an English one. We forced slavery on the
We are now sowing there the seeds
OF disSension broadcast. We do not admit that the
state of the negro slave is anything like what is
pictured in Uncle Toms Cabin, in any case. There
may be solitary cases approaching it in abomina-
tion. But the Americans, abolitionists or not, shall
and will get rid of slavery as they please them
selves, and everything done in England, either sen.
or not, adds only force to opposition.
Mrs. Stowe has libeled her countrymen, let them
look to that. England need not back her with Ho-
lywell-street ignorance and Exeter hall cant. IL
she do, she will sow the wind and reap the whirl-
wind. Every American in London is diSgusted with
the Uncle Tom mania here. If he 20 to a theatre
he IS insulted and shocked. The English people,
on the other hand, are deluded into the ialsest no.
lions OF America. Wien the slave in the drama
escapes into British Canada, there is cheer. That
cheer may cost us some day our hest alliance. AT
',i' nioineHt III lnleIeStS Oh England ana America
should be one. Why do not the English ladies in
teriere on behalf of the enslaved French people
We believe, on the other hand, that Louis Napo-
leon is popular with them. If England interfere
with American slavery, she will not effect her Oh
lect, but the result may be, ere long, that she will
enslave herself. We have no patience to pursue
subject further. The book is false in fact, as
the fine ladies are false in sentiment. The good
and evil to be done by this excitement on ou1 part
are IN comparative torcc and reality as the tears of
an Adelphi audience compared to the fears of blood
that are shed by nations. This Intervention will
be indeed accused. But why should it cxist?-
Simply because we ale peace-strickvn hypocrites.
Thaddeus Of Warsaw did not cause us to interfere
on behalf OF Poland. Yet Miss Porter's work was
not overdrawn, and in merit how unmeasurahlv
superior to Uncle Toms Cabin? Alas! that he
following verse should be so likely 10 receive an
Interpretation by such means, The Devil, in the