Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1863-12-24
Mrs. Kemble's Journal.

Mrs. KRMBLE's Journalo of a Resi-
dence on Georgian Plantation,
which has just been given to the
American public by Harper & Bros,
is the most complete exposure of the
innate wickedness Of the system Of
American Slavery that has yet been
made. The only work to which it
is at all possible to compare it is
Uncle Toms Cabin. But that is far
inferior in power to the book before
us in this one respect it was work
Of fiction, which did not profess to
relate actual events, but merely to
describe those which might legitimate
ly take place under the laws and Gus
toms which then characterized South
ern Slavery. In Mrs. Kemble'
Journal, Mrs. Stoves possibilities
become realities.
The life ofthe author S well known.
Some years since she became the
wife of Mr.. Pierce Butler, who own
ed plantation on one of the islands
at the mouth of the Altamah River.
The present volume is the diary of her
residence during period oftwo years
on her husbands plantation, as kept
in the course of her correspondence
with friend in Massachusetts. Ad-
ditional value is impaired to Mrs
Kemble's testimony from the fact that
it is thus record of the impressions
of the moment, made upon the spot,
with no thought that it would ever
be made public, and consequently
with no reference to it's bearing upon
civil or political questions.
HOW THE SLAVES LIVE.
We have heard a great deal about
the comforts enjoyed by the negroes
of the cotton and rice States, and how
their condition is superior to that of
the laboring men in the Free States
Mrs. Kemble introduces us to their
houses
81 walked down the settlement toward
the infirmary or hospital, calling in at one
or two of the houses along the row.
These cabins consist Of one room, about
twelve feet by fifteen, with couple of
closets smaller and closer than the state
room of ship, divided off from the
main room and each other by rough
wooden partitions, in which the inhabi-
tants sleep. They have almost all of
them rude bedstead, with the gray
moss of the forest for mattress, and
filthy, pestilential-looking blankets for
covering. Two families (sometimes
eight and ten in unmber) reside in one
of these huts, which are mere wooden
frames pinned, as it were, to the earth
by brick chimney outside, whose
enormous aperture within pours down
flood of air, but little counteracted by
the miserable spark of fire, which hard
" sends an attenuated thread of linger-
ing smoke up its huge throat. A wide
ditch runs Immediately at the back of
these dwellings, which is filled and
emptied daily by the tide. Attached to
each hovel is small scrap of ground
for garden, which, however, is for the
| most part unattended and uncultivated.
Such Of these dwellings as | visited to-
day were filthy and wretched in the ex-
treme, and exhibited the most deplora-
BILE consequence of ignorance and an abb
| ject condition, the inability of the in
habitants 10 secure and improve even
such pitiful comfort as might yet be
achieved by them. Instead Of the or
der, neatness, and ingenuity which
might convert even these miserable
novels into tolerable residences, there
was the careless, reckless, filthy indo
lence which even the brutes do not ex-
hibit in their lairs and nests. and which
seemed incapable of applying 10 the
uses Of existence and the few miserable