The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-12
A NEW FORM OF SLAVERY.

Hn6h ulSlOIJ bAall De WIlbLout
will be pronounced able and magnanimous.
A NEW FORM OF SLAVERY.
From the Washington National Tntelligencer.
In many respects the negro is rs much a
slave to-day as he was six years ago. Nine
tenths of them are enrolled in the Loyal
Leagues, and are bound by oaths to obey their
superiors and masters. They move like
sheep, and dare not disobey under peril Of
persecution in their business, social ostraoism,
and personal violence, even to the taking of
life. The few negroes who, some years ago, in
Virginia, undertook to act Independently and
vote with the conservatives, were set upon and
barely escaped with their lives. We thus
see most slavish despotism erected over the
African. II he has manhood In him he
rarely dares to assert it. The only difference is
that he has changed his master. Once proba-
bly, he had gentleman for his MASTER and
not unlikely an indulgent and liberal one,
who, while he exacted compulsory labor from
him, respected his feelings, and was his firm
friend and well-wisher. Now, instead of a
gentleman whom he can respect to control
him, he is completely managed and owned by
creatures who are the very opposite of gentle
men-men selfish, rspacious, cunning, and
unscrupulous, using the negro for their own
advantage, and ready to throw him off the
day after the election. OF the two forms of
slavery surely the first is the least degrading
to the black man. In the old days the better
class of negroes were very solicitous to be
owned by gentlemen. They did not relish the
idea of falling into the hands of mean and
vulgar whites for masters. A little of this
sensibility would just now be very appro-
pirate. Let them throw off the slavery Of the
Leagues and the carpet-bsggers. This is the
first step to elevate the black race.
"WOMAN IN THE LYCEUM."
From the ". Y. Tribune.
In the pretty theatre of the Union League
Club, on Monday night, Miss Kate Field had
her bright excuse for being-for being lee
turer, we mean. 1t seemed to us sign Of
the times that very fashionable audience, in
very fashionable clothes, filled this most fash
ionable of assembly rooms, to hear woman
speak. For, though Mrs. Lucy Stone instructs
conventions, and Miss Anna Dickinson de-
lights mass meetings, feminine oratory is still
mentioned with condescension, and the femi-
nire crater has not, in these latter days,
been considered 'the thing" We say in
these latter days, for our most conservative
tourist is confronted at Padua by the statue
of Elena Corparo, lecturer on philology
and professor of six languages in the un-
rivaled University of her time. Clotida
Zambroni was almost as appalling, yet
her age endured her with philosophy. And
no hint comes down to us that Deborah was
counted strong minded by her neighbors,
though she judged the people, and wrote
history. In America, where the Logical result
of our national formula of equal rights is the
perfect freedom OF woman, as of man, to do
any work, to achieve any success which
natural endowments make possible, it seems
an odd thing that women have not long ago
settled bey ond dispute their claim that ability
decides the question of fitness. That it is by
no means settled is proved by the discussion
everywhere prov0ked-in newspapers, in
magazines, in legislatures, in pulpits. Nay,
the lecture of Monday night was protest
against the prevailing sentiment in respect to
women's work. Ia
The one poisoned shaft which has been flung
at all women who asserted that noble work
undertaken for noble ends was neither man s
work nor woman's work, but human work, a
thing higher than either, is the epithet sun
feminine" 1t is what the subtle professor
calls polarized word, which has come to
represent certain things which in no wise
belong 10 it. Now, if he could depolarize the
word, we should have some hope OF testing
the thing it misrepresents. To be feminine
is to be gentle, modest, truthful, pure,
intuitive. 1t is not to be idle, eXtraVagant,
silly, vain, thoughtless, snowy, empty. Now
let us question the occasion. lecturer
asks us to hear some thoughts which seem
to, her to have a certain social significance.
Vo b"s phJlbB Out uOlldT dL Tue uOOf, hS
we should pay it to hear the fultthroated
! Parepa. So far, nothiAg unteminine. The
lady enters quistly, as she would enter her
own drawing room, appearing, with exquisite
| breeding, on the very stroke of the clock.
Certain famous orators and singers might pom
der to advantage this leaf OF her behavior.
book. Her audience is pleased 10 see her, and
she looks pleased that she gives pleasure.
Unless floating robes, and soft ribbons, and
the breath OF flowers, aud easy, and grace,
are upteminine, she has not yet offended
In low, thoroughly trained voice, she reads
her essay. But it IA such rea ing as we dc
not often hear. The airy, conversational tone
the pure enunoistion; the absolute and alas
unusual justice meted out TO worthy, but toe
oittn unacknowledged vowels; the entire alb
sence OF preaching on the one hand and o.
nlppancy on the Other-are these unfsmipiue
Inc lesd'r says, in effect, that since the plat
ioim one's room and pay to women, and since
nature, however mistaken seems very posi
lively to have bestowed on women snsoia
oratorioal gifts, ii appears TO her a waste O
forces that the lyceum should not be as mn
questioned field for women as for men. Ant
, she supports her theory with arguments
seriPtural, logical, economical aud social
81. Paul and Adam Smith amiablv nnsh q,
the car OF her triumph, literature and histor,
are tributary to her. and small elves of wi
and Imagination cover with fantastic garlaud
those heavy weights and make avian Al pan