The Lambertville press. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1858-1???, 1859-02-03

few days ana then Wrlggled our way mp crook
ed narrow-minded little stream, with all sorts OF
currents running the wrong way, q am sure OF
! that) and overhung, at intervals with impertn-
ent rocks, threading every moment to jump on
board and grind US between the upper and ne
Their milestone and that after deal of pulling
and hauling and no end of noise we at last cast
anchor before wretched little place, rejoicing,
if am not much mistaken, in the misnomer OF
Port Allegro Here we discharged our load OF
notions, which the shrewd supercargo had at
once snapped off with a fussy little Portuguese
Jew for world of hide and taow, and then
with dispatch known only to Yankee shippers
we curled our way back to Rio Grande, address
ed ourselves once more to the sea, and in forty
days, more less, cast anchor safe and sound In
the harbor of dear old Boston
should have said that at Rio Grande one of
our crew having failed in love with native wa
ter carrier ran away with himself; and the cap
tain fuding it utterly impossible to procure an
able bodied seaman we were under the necessity
of shipping raw recruit, who though black as
coal, was at once installed with all the honors in
the vacant place of green hand.
Though spry as monkey, and in every nau-
teal sense worth score of men like his immedi-
ate predecessor, Though I say it who shouldnt)
he became, of course, the butt of the whole crew.
and, alas for poor human nature, Of no one more
perseveringly than myself His good nature,
however, or his Indifference joined to Cor per-
haps growing out of gutta percha constitution
was proof against everything. Kicks, cuffs
oaths and all kinds of practical. jokes were am
munition as useless against him as British balls
against Yankee cotton bales. He never retaa-
ted anything for he never felt anything. Dis
charge pistol by his ear and he would be as
unmoved as if you had but whistled at him.
Raised ia the widest part of Africa he could say
with Rogers cold Man of the Mountain" that
he wasn't brought up on thunder to be scared
by gun
In less than week he was the best sailor on
board; and despite our patriotic prejudice
against color instead of butt we tried to make
him pet But the fellow was as Indifferent to
our likes as to our dislikes. | incline to think
that he had all along wholesome contempt for
the whole crew; and that if we had ever wit
enough to invent, or courage enough to apply
anything really annoying to him, some fine
morning he would have quietly logged the whole
of us and smoked pipe over our defeat.
When his image oceasionly fits across my
mind, and remember how, during his first few
DAYS on shipboard, l, with the rest used to be-
rate ard bully him-not so much because ne Was
black Though this was no light otfence) as be-
cause he was green-my only regret IS that he
didn't in the first instance give me sound thra-
shing, and thus early in life teach me, through the
happy medium of the skin, lesson which,
through any other medium, mankind has ever
been very slow to learn.
Say what you will against corporal punishment
a good fogging is often the best thing in the
world, not only for boys but for men. 1t is
said that Mike Walsh once logged New DIRK
dandy for having said tohis companion, on seeing
a poor fellow fall to the pavement from house
top in Broadway, Come along, Fred, it's only
a mechanic (" and think the dandy was served
right. If he was an idiot, as the dandy usually
is, he thought so himself, and was more or less
grateful to Mike for teaching him good les
son.
It is all very well to talk of appealing to a
mans moral sense, but suppose he is a bully OF
blockhead and hasn't any. Or suppose there's
no time to preach-even if there is anything to
preach at. Would you read homily to man
with your nose between his fingers, or to the
brute who insulted your wife? Would you ban
dy words with Haynau if you could get at him
or Louis Napoleon
Moral force is a very good thing no doubt,
but so is physical force; and for that matter
the one is as necessary to the other as the body
to the soul, or the soul to the body, Our brave
forefathers required bothto throw tea overheard ;
and both have been found useful in all time to
throw tyrants overheard; though SO that they
are thrown oyer-the whole of them-great and
small-Napoleons as well as Neros--it matters