The Oxford intelligencer., 1860-08-01
From Dickens Short Stories
The Noble Savage.

To come to the point at once, beg to say
that have not the least belief in the Noble
Savage. consider him a prodgious nuis-
ance, and an enormous superstition. His
calling rum firewater, and me pale face,
wholly fail to reconcile me TO him. don't
care what he calls me. call him savage,
and call savage something highly desi-
rable to be civilisel off tho faoa nf tho Garth
/ think a mere gent (which | take to be the
lowest form of civilisation) better than how
ling, whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping,
tearing savage. 1t is all one to me, whether
he sticks fish-bone through his visage, or
bits of trees through the lobes of his ears,
or birds feathers in his head whether he
fattens his hair between two boards, or
spreads his nose over the breadth of his face,
or drags his lower lip down by great weights,
or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or
paints one cheek red and the other blue, or
tattoos himself, or oils himself, or rubs his
body with fat, or crimps it with Knives
Yielding to whatsoever of these agreeable
eccentricities, he is a savage-cruel, false,
thievish, murderous; addicted more or less
to grease, entrails, and beastly customs a
wild animal with the questionable gift of
Boosting aconceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty,
monotonous humbug.
Yet it is extraordinary to observe how
some people will talk about him, as they talk
about the good old times; how they will re-
greet his disappearance, in the course of this
worlds development, from such and such
lands where his absence is blessed relief
and an Indispensable preparation for the SOW
ing of the very first seeds Of any influence
that can exalt humanity how, even with the
evidence of himself before them, they will
either be determined to believe, or will suffer
themselves to be persuaded into believing that
he is something which their five senses tell
them he is not.
There was Mr.. Catlin, some few years ago,
with his Ojibbeway Indians. Mr.. Catlin was
an earnest energetic man, who had lived
among more tribes of Indians than | need
reckon up here, and who had written pic
turesque and glowing book about them
With his party of Indians squatting and
splitting on the table before him, or dancing
their miserable jigs after their own dreary
manner, he called, In all good faith, upon hisl
civilised audience to take notice of their
symmetry and grace, their perfect limbs, and
the exquisite expression of their pantomime !;
and his civilised audience, in all good faith,
complied and admired. Whereas, as mere
animals, they were wretched creatures, very
low in the scale and very poorly formed and
as men and women possessing any power of
truthful dramatic expression by means of &C
ton, they were no better than the chorus at
an Italian Opera in England-and would have
been worse if such thing were possible.
Mine are no new views of the noble saw
age. The greatest writers on natural history
found him out long ago.. BVFroS knew what
he was, and showed why he is the sulky ty-
rant that he is to his women, and how it hap
pens Heaven be praised , that his race is
spare in numbers. For evidence of the Quail
ity Of his moral nature, pass himself for a
moment and refer to his faithful dog Has
he ever improved dog or attached a dog,
since his nobility first ran wild in woods. and
was brought down lat very long shot) by
PoPEl Or does the animal that is the friend
Of man, always degenerate in his low society