New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-24


religious sentiments, and that the school VIII
be preserved. They ought to know that ed
ucation is now their prime necessity, and re-
gard those who strike at the means OF educa-
ton as their foes.
For the present spare the colored preach
err of Lotsburgh who is allowing himself to be
used by designing men against the interests
of his people, but he will do well to desist at
once from his warfare. He cannot be sus-
tanned in his crusade against this school by
his enlightened brethren anywhere outside OF
Lotsburgh. At the meeting held in the school,
house on Saturday last, Mr.. Henry Seiden,
evidently deeply religious man, showed very
clearly that the objects now sought by poliii-
cal action are sacred enough to be proclaimed
within the walls of any church, and I think
his words met hearty response from those
who heard him.
The excellent ladies' now exerting them
selves to educate and improve the eolored
people of Lotsburgh, having law and humanity
on their side, will resist every attempt to
deprive them of their school. All good Re
publicans in the neighborhood stand by them
in their truly noble work, and they are OPP
posed by the so-called Conservatives and
Democrats. This Lotsburgh affair may seem
small matter, but it is not so. For If this
religious Ku-Kluxism can be made to succeed
in breaking up the negro school there, it will
be surely resorted to elsewhere, and will be
successful elsewhere.
nf via n
Virginia would be still less perfect if did
not tell my readers how l got into and out
of that State, for the way into that State has
not always been smooth to colored travellers.
4 journey thther is usually attended with
prescription and insult, and one sensitive to
such degrading provocations has little pleas
ure in such trips. Indeed, il is positive
misery for colored man, with any sense OF
the respect due to manhood, to put himself at
the mercy Of the officers and the regulations
of Potomac steamboat. He does not travel
as passenger, hardly as freight, but as one
of the haltered cattle that crowd the forward
deck among bags of unfriendly smelling fer
tilizers with which these boats are generally
loaded, and which permeates them with a
sickening odor long after the vessel has dis
charged its cargo. The object seems to be
to prevent the colored man not from travel
ing-for they want his money-want any
body's money-but from travelling as gen.
tlemap. This last they will not tolerate. They
say to him you shall go as the cattle go.
You shall not have place in the cabin,
you shall not have state-room to sleepin, you
shall not come to the table when the bell rings
for dinner in word, you shall either sleep on
the open deck, or be crowded into filthy
hole, filed with a company of unwashed peo-
pie, with whom you have nothing but hui
mainly and color in common. These boats
say to colored man, you shall neither be
clean nor a gentleman, if We can help it.
You may have the wealth, the education,
and the manners of gentleman, but spite
of all, when you step upon our decks you
shall sink into the common degradation we
have prepared for your race. /. The object is
to keep all negroes upon dead level, and
that level is the old plantation level, which
ranked the negro with four-footed beasts and
creeping things. Iwarn them, however, that
this old plantation level cannot be main
| tained Not all the steamboats, in Old Vir-
ginia can prevent the colored race from pro-
ducing men who shall have self-respect, cha
racter, education, and gentlemanly manners.
had intended when begun this rude sketch
to have said something of the broad and
beautiful Potomac, the appearance of its
shores, the delightful climate, and its glori-
Gus sky, with its bright October sun, and
several other subjects which naturally awaken
pleasant sentiments, but time and space for
bid. 1t only remains to say that the general
rule applying to colored travellers on the Poto-
mac, as above described, was not repealed,
but only relaxed in my case. Through the in.
terposition of good Miss Putnam, who was
on board the Wawasit, was allowed sofa
in the open cabin to lie on, and owing to the
forethought of the same lady, l was furnished
with some excellent bread and tea during
the downward trip. 1 advise all who travel
on these Potomac boats in cool weather to
provide themselves with bread and blankets,
for they will need both if they have far to
travel. F. d.