The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1880-11-11
T~ourgee's New Pamphlet Against the
South.
WASHINGTON d q. Oc,

WASHINGTON, u. G.. Oct, 81.
have just finished reaiing Brick:
without Straw Il was like making bricks
without straw % read il. think i is the
uost stupid volume having the brand oil
Novel onits fac that il was ever my mis-
fortune TO peruse. In nothing except name
is it a work of fiction, | do not mean ~
the expression just used 10 Intimate that
Ju ige Tourgee'a book j. net a work Of nc
tion IN the sense that pgramldal lllng j. q
work of fiction. In such sense Bricks
without Straw l. unparalleled II All the
realm of letters.
Itmay be well, as the book is having a
tremendous run at the North, 10 give those
Of your readers who may never see il a short
account Of the linked invereciiies which it
contains within its 52l pages.
In "A Fools Errand" the story is related
of a high-toned carpet-bagger who was
dragged into politics against hi. will and
to vindicate the rights Of the down-trodden
colored people. Bricks without Straw
is the career from birth to mature age of a
North Carolina plantation negro. He
bears the remarkable name OF Numbers
''Jes' Nimbres. an no mo- and he be-
Ionged in slavery times to a gentleman h4v-
ing the equally remarkable name of Potes-
tatem Desmit. The scene is laid at Red
Wing, Horsford COUNT" by which we IN
derstand Blue Wing, Granville county, al
though tie county-scat is that OF Franklin
-Louisburg The slave is sent, in charge
Of Col Desmlt's contingent, to the work
ing corps OF negroes on the coast fortified
lions of the ~confederacy. Although he had
been treated kindly and had even been
paid BIZ his master IN advance for his ser
vices in looking after the other slaves,
Nimbres proved both ungrateful and trea-
cherous. At the first opportunity he de
serted to the Yankees and Joined the army
of invasion. The war over, he returned to
his former home and family, worked very
hard, saved money which he added to his
dues as a Federal soldier, and with the
whole amount purchased tract of tobacco
land Succeeding as a farmer, he incurred
strange to relate were not Judge Tour
gee the relator the bitter luminosity of the
dominant race. They discouraged all OF
Nimbres efforts to ameliorate the condI-
ton OF his people, even burning down the
church of the colored people at Red Wing,
seriously wounding the cOlored preacher IN
a masked attack, and driving both Nimbres
and this preacher, one Eliab Hill, an In off
ensive, though progressive mulatto, into
exile for fear of losing their lives. A Yam
kee school marin appears in the story as both
an angel of light and a heroine of the anti
Que pattern. Aone-armcd Confederate sol
dier has views" different from those enter
tanned by his ncighbors, and although veal
thy, refined and popular, he joins the re-
publican party just because he belleves 10
it's mission as the party of 1.-The Nation. ~
OF course social martyrdOm follows, but
he is of such heroic mould that he passes
through it like Polycarp through the fire
purified and fitted tor Heaven The book
closes with Nimbrcs, broken, bruised,
crushed, seeking refuge with his family
and friends, in free Kansas, on lands
owned by Mollie Ainslie, the pretty, anna
Die, intellectual, energetic, high-toned, su-
per refined and grandly heroic ex-teacher Of
OF the Red Wing ''niggcr school"
Such in brief is Bricks without Straw:
A Novel. By Albion w. Tourgte, L. l..
D., late Judge Of the Superior Court IN
ponderous phamphleteer's judicial preten-
siens, il may he we'll to print a cert ain anec-
dote. After Tourgee had served his term
as a Judge of the Superior Court and had
become for the first time a member OF the
bar, be applied for license to practise be
fore the Supreme Court. Judge Pearson,
the Chief Justice, at that time, with the tine
.corn of sham which ever distinguished him
asa man and jarist, remarked that although
a person might uDder p~eculinr circumstance
be elected a Judge in North Carolina, he
might even ride a circuit as such For several
years, but if he did not know enough law
ne should not become q member OF the bar
of the Supreme Court while he could pre-
>eat it l. G. ". III. IN G0ldsJorO .Ncssen-
ger.
+Can the N. G.. Po'ycarp be Col. Ta1
HaIgrove?