Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1871-08-17
A Radical Lovefeast.

| The belligerent Bowen has again
assumed his war paint and feathers,
and is on the war path. His plan
of campaign is to lure thu credulous
colored masses to retired groves upon
the islands of the sea by such devices
as the seductive ginger cake and the
exuberant root beer. and, having ex-
hibited to them such diantiee, to in
fict upon them speeches from i'm
pro7vised and rustic platforms, where
lin he lays his hand upon his heart
and begs to know if they, his audi
ence, whom he is glad to see and
proud to call his brethren, can be-
fieve of him, who thus addresses
them, the scandalpus and wicked
tales that are spread broadcast by
those malicious emissaries Of the
Evil One, by which he begs to be un-
derstood aslmeaning the Democrats,
whose hearts are deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked?
Whereupon his dusky audience, with
a lively sense Of ginger cake to come,
respond with sheutsof Hear hearF
ri yiI" Bress de Lamb," and in
divers other incoherent and irrele-
want manners, express their hearty
reverence for the gentle Bowen, and
their high appreciation OF the bovine
barbecue.
A lovefeast of this charactar took
place last Saturday night, at the
Camp Ground on Edisto Island. It
is described with gushing enthusiasm
by some of its attendants, and from
all accounts it must have been sort
of cross between colored camp meet
ing and a Voudon incarnation. The
ambitious Bowen .exhorted and ex-
postulated, berated and besought,
and pumped the excitement in his
shouting audience up to fever heat.
he argued and they applauded. he
gesticulated and they foared, he
danced and they prostrated them.
selves in convulsioRs Of delight, until
the audience resolved itself inte q
promiscuous, squirning, perspiring
! mass of odoriferous enthusiasm. Men
shouted and women howled, the little
pickannies lost their ginger cakes by
being crushed to Nubian jeHes in the
seethingmass = the Saturnahan echoes
resounded from the trees and scared
the solemn owls down. from their
resting places; who circled around the
scene and gazed with big-eye won
der. Next rush was made for Bow
en- by the ELUSIVE shades, who refus-
ed.to be pacifed, except by shaking
hands with their new apostle. They
hustled him off of the platform, and
stretching their numbers out in two
long lines, the shaking of hands be-
gan. The martyred orator passed
down the centre, his arms on either
side working up and down, as seized
by the dusky gauntlet, and looking
| like the levers of an erratic pump.
Old blind men, toothless and totter-
ling, came llndsput their hands ppen,
him BECAME they wanted t3ses dis
man Bowen" )" women jostled out Of
the line by the stronger men, reached
their hands through the ranks, pluck
ed the hem of Bowen's garments, and
| shouted with rapture, "I touched
'uml" and mothers brought rags and
handkerchiefs, laid them up against
| their new found Moses, and took them
away to lay on their sick babies. In
fact the dusky mass did every thing
| that gushing idiots could do under
the strongest stimulant Of excitement.
and then the cakes and beer super
vening, they devoured them with ca
ger avidity, until, with the disap-
pearance of the last ginger cake, and
the Squeezing of the last beer-bottle,
they wended their devious ways back
to their various dens, making night
hideous as they passed with crazy
shouts of "Bowen for Governor! Oh,
1 l.I noo,,1o -,o