The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-01
UNCLE TOMS CABIN.
ABusiness Peep Into Ii,

The Washington correspondent Of the Chi
cago Tribune writes:-
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has been the
heroine of two extraordinary acts of notoriety
both publications, and in this fresh period of
the last of them, have taken leisure to walk
over to the Capitol and examine in the library
there perhaps the only complete file of the
National Era existing, wherein she printed
her great novel.
The Era is a weekly folio paper, long ago
extinct, of seven columns, printed on soft,
thin, cotton rag paper, and announced as
edited by G. Bailey, with John G.. Whittier
for corresponding editor. 1t is mainly lite
rary paper, and partly an anti-slavery paper,
with news, editorials, etc., thrown in. The
first look that you get of it shows you that it
is the paper of man of principle, and man
of literary taste. For some time before Mrs.
Stowe wrote much for it, there were deferen-
tial notices of her name, and then a few little
contributions to her credit, but the stock
story-writer for the paper was Mrs, E.
d. E. N. Southworth, who, if she had
been a woman of education, would
nave been a better novelist than Mrs.
Stowe; for she has more contrivance, vipor
and theatre than the greater fame can Law
claim to, and is the victim of her imperfect
opportunities in early life. There is never
! strong portraiture in Mrs. Stoves stories: her
people are mere vehicles for various condi-
tions and emotions to show themselves upon
Dred was her only free agent, and he was O
dreadfully clumsy angel of darkness. Take
notice, too, that in Mrs. Stoves Southern
stories, none of the whites speak in Southern
white fashion; every mortal one of them
tuned his ear east by north of Manhattan
Island.
However, on the 1st of January, 1851, at
! the commencement of the Uncle Tom volume.
this announcement appeared
'cMrs e. D. e. NJ Southworth the American no.
vest, who first became known to the public through
the columns OF our paper, has engaged to furnish
story for our new volume"
1t was not till the Sth of May, in the same
volume, that the following respectful an
nouncement appeared
"A new story by Mrs Stowe
"Week after next we propose to commence in the
FRA the publication OF new story by Mrs. ii. b.
stowe, the ttle OF which will be Uncle Toms
Cabin; or, The Man that was a Thing 1t will pro.
baby be OF the length OF the tale by Mrs. South
worth, entitled Retribution.'
'Mrs. stowe is one of the most gifted and popular
OF American writers. We announce her story ia ad,
vance that none of our subscribers through neglect
OF IT, and that those who desire TO read the produc-
tion as 1t may appear in successive numbers of The
Era, may SEND us their names in season."
The next notice appeared on May 22:--
''Ihe first two chapters have been received, but
we snail not be able to begin their publication til
week after next"
The story finally appeared June 5, 1851,
with the better subtitle of ''Life Among the
Lowly," and over it was the shrewd precau
tionary announcement;-'Co Copyright secured
by the author"
While the story was going along, week
after week, biography appeared of b. f.
Wade, Senator elect from Ohio, and also, OF
June 26, the third week, the news that Schuy
Ter Colfax, the proprietor of the St. JOSEPH
Register, had been nominated as the Wbi(