The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-06
BiISCEGENATIoN.

How the Color Line Is Being Obliterated
The Shady Side of Washington Life.
Washington Special.
The police, in taking the recent census of
Washington, stumbled upon one fact regarding
the population which was not provided for IL the
blanks. The discovery made that mis-
cegeuation is practiced here to an extent not
heretofore suspected. There are, it seems, up
wards of sixty families in which either the hus-
band or wife is a negro. These are all cases
where the ceremony has been duly performed
and the parties are living together openly. In
more than half of the number the wife is the
Caucasian. AS to illegal unions. where whites
and blacks are living together without ceremony,
the police report that they number hundreds.
One explanation offered is that there is no law
here against intermarriage of races, and people
who wish to live in this way come here from
Maryland and Virginia. where miscegenation is
prohibited under severe penalty
The Washington Critic to night speaks of the
surprise which the revelation will occasion right
here in Washington.
THE few cases. it says, that have been
referred to in the public prints have come to
light through the police department, and the
impression naturally prevailed that only weak
minded white women those who have lived a
life Of shame would take negro for husband.
This is not the case" 1t goes to detail the
results of an investigation by one of its report
ers. who accompanied an officer to No.
2l59 Ninth street ard found three
white women in one house who had
married colored husbands Two of the women
were sisters The detective was in search of in
formation about recent robbery that occurred
in the house of n lady who had in her employ
daughter of one of these women. The girl had
been arrested and released she was found to
be innocent The house where these people were
found is small two story brick. Pleasant
Williams colored bricklayer, is the lord and
master of the household. and his wife is Rose
Williams, a good Hooking white woman or forty
years. The two other complies were visitors and
1--we i'm the neighborhood, only few doors away
Mary Jones is the sister of Mrs. Williams. Her
husband is a colored grocer named VIM. Jones.
The wife of a colored wagond driver named Ed
johnson. was the Youngest and best looking.
She was only eighteen years old. and had In her
arms beautiful infant one year old, which was
nearly white
Mrs Williams was greatly distressed at her
daughter, a dark mulatto girl. having been
locked up in a stationhouse on a charge of lar
ceny. II try to raise my children as respectable
rs any in the city," she said, and she looked
around the room afectionately at her five colored
children while she caressed ten-year-old col
ored boy in her lap. The children were very
fond of their mother, and were also obedent and
respectful to her The house gave every evil
dence of being we'll kept and the children we'll
cared for and comfortably dressed Their edu-
cation was also looked after, some of them
could read and write, and the room was
strewn with half-worny school books and
states Mrs Williams did not seem
to be at all sensitive of her eolored
connections She said she had been married
seventeen years, and came here from Hanover
county, Va, about seven miles from Richmond,
where her father was we'll TODD farmer. Her
family name was Melton. Her sister came here
and married her present husband about eleven
years ago. Mrs. johnson came here from Min
nesota, and was also married here. They were
married by the Rev. John Brooks, Rev Albert
Edridge and Rev. Mr. Anderson, respectively.
In answer to a question as to why she married a
colored man, she said she found man who
loved and who would take care of her. and she
was not going to throw herself away on any
common white nam. The husbands OF all these
women were found to be industrious and kind to
their wives. The portrait of Charles Sumner
hung on the parlor wall.