Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1853-08-27


BARBECUE AT s. a. DOUGLAS PLANTATION.
Mr.. EDIToR i had the pleasure of attending the
barbecue given by James Strickland, the agent and
oyerseer of the Hon. Stephen A. Douglas OF Illinois
at the plantation of this gentleman Pearl river in
this county, on the Both ultimo. The barbecue was
intended really for the slaves the place. in accor
dance with yearly custom which Mr.. Strickland
has adopted but there goodly number OF ladies
and gentlemen present from the immediate neigh
borhood.
The arrangements were all in most excellent taste,
and the tables groaned beneath profuslon OF all the
good things of this life The barbecued meats were
dressed in the finest and most relishabe style, and
the adjoining river and lakes had been forced to add
their supply of dainties to the feast noticed, too
that there real superabundance OF delightful
cake of all Sorts shapes sizes, and ingredients; but
being almost greedily engaged in the demolition OF
the more substantial portions of the dinner feel in
competent to pass distinct judgment upon the same
NV friend Jack - expressed, [ think, the sentl-
ment of the crowd, when, with two tender ribs of
mutton in his mouth and delicate piece of well
Drowned fish on his fork, he hoarsey whispered, 1t
is good and pleasant thing to be here"
The negroes followed the invited guests at the ia
bles and sat down to the same dainties and delica
cies which had lust afforded so much satisfaction to
our palates. They numbered some one hundred and
forty in all 1t goodly sight to see their dark
conntenances lighted up with pleasure at the sight OF
the eatables before them the entire abandon with
which they pitched into the good things; the ex-
treme decacy of the female portion of the crowd,
ordering the delighted walters with fastdious taste
and careless toss of the head to fetch the incest
pieces of sheep-meat they could find, or ito cut
big slice of de cake wild de icing ii" " to stand
furder back and not crowd on de lady when she war
drinking coffee"
The most amusing part of the scene was a table
full of little snow ballS-some forty in number, and
all about one size and age They were the blacklist
of black little niggers' Their heads rolled from
side to side as they crammed in the food and more
particularly the cake, in pure repetion OF animal
enjoyment They did enjoy it. Tears were IN their
1arre rO1liDo Int they tears produced by
safety of cake. They wept because they could
Z" Eat more!'
There was not of the slaves, little or big, but
who was dressed cleanly and some of them elegant
ly-or there is (srange it may sound to the years
of somc fully as much taste for dress among negroes
as among the whites. The little rugged off
in their white cotton shirts the old familiar panta-
ton dress for the children of the South-white as
we'll as black. Here was COMFORT heGLth, and nap
piqeSs displayed.
NV object, Mr. Editor in thus detailing the
which witnessed this plantation, is to call the
attention of your readers (and it may be some who
are not to the fact that here in own county Of
Lawrence in the State of Mississippi is large plant
alton of negroes owned by Northern United States
Senator and that these negroes better fed better
clothed and their bodily comforts better provided for
than many of the white laboring classes of the
North-passing by for the present the condition of
its free negro population The negroes of Senator
Douglas have divine service regularly performed and
for their special benefit. Their spiritual as well as
struck me that it would have been most instructive
lesson to certain hee-son constituents of Senator
Douglas to have been present on this occasion.
would like to have seen the exponent and imbodi-
ment of e All Young America make his appearance
just his slaves seated themselves at the tables in
order that he might have taken in at single glance
the real condition of the "poor African of the South.
1t would have added eloquence to his tongue,
new strength to his genius, and new energy to his
soul to have been able to witness such scene
this, and afterwards, when fanaticism should drop
the sanderons fasehood from its tongue, to have de-
scribed, in his own strong and vivid language, the
sight he beheld on the banks of the Pearl in the
slave State of Mississippi and to have told the rev
lers of our institutions, with his natural bodness
that this was not isolated instance of the south
erner's humanity to the slave-but that it was the
same everywhere-over the full length and breadth
of our beautiful and smiling South. 1t would have
been good hint to such man as Douglas to have
told those charatans in literature those pharsees in
philanthropy and that immodest womanhood of the
North, what we knew the truth to be from actual
observation. MUTTON.