The Washington critic., 1885-06-04
A BLENDING OF CoLORS.
The Extent to Which Miscegenation Tx
lists i'm the District.


lists i'm the District.
Few persons have any idea of the eX-
tent to which miscegcnation exists in this
city. The few cases that have been re-
ferred to in the public prints come to light
through the Police Department, and the
impression naturally prevailed that only
wcak-minded white women or those who
have lived life of shame would take
negro for husband. This is not the case.
A CRITIC reporter recently accompanied
Detective Cox to No. 2l59 Ninth street and
found three white women i'm one house
who had married colored husbands. Two
of the women were sisters. The detective
was in search of information about re-
cent robbery that occurred in the house
of lady who had in her employ a daugh-
ter of one of these women. The girl had
been arrested and released, as she was
found to be innocent. The house where
these people were found is a small two
story brick. Pleasant Williams, colored
bricklaycr, is the lord and master of the
household, and his wife is Rose Williams,
good-looking white woman of 40 years.
The two other couples were visitors, and
live in the peighborhood only a few doors
away. Mary Jones is the sister of Mrs.
Williams. Her husband is q colored
grocer named VIM. Jones. The wife of a
colored wagon-driver named Ed Johnson
was the youngest and best looking. She
was only 1S years old, and had in her arms
a beautiful infant year old, which was
nearly white Mrs. Williams was greatly
distressed at her daughter, dark mulatto
girl having been locked up in II station
house on charge of larceny.
81 try to raise my children as respecta-
BILE as any in the city," she said, and she
looked around the room aiiectionately mt
her five colored children while she caressed
n a I...
children were very fond of their mother,
and were also obedont and respectful to
her. The house gave every evidence of
being well kept, and the children we'll
cared for and comfortably dressed.
Their education was also looked after
MS some of them could read and write, and
the room was strewn with half-worn
school books and states Mrs. Williams
did not seem to be at all sensitive of her
colorcd 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 Il well-to-do farmer. Her fam
lily name was Melton. Her sister came
here and married her present husband
about eleven years ago. Mrs. Johnson
came here from Minnesota and was also
married here.
They were married by the Rev. John
Brooks, Rev. Albert Eldridge and Rev
Anderson respectively. In answer to u
question as TO why she married q colored
man, she said she found a man she loved
and who would take care of her, and she
was not going to throw herself away on
any common white man. The husbands
of all these women were found TO be indus
tlious and kind to their wives The por-
trait of Charles Sumner hung on the parlor
wall.
The police say there are more than sixty
cases of miscegenation in the District.
This is accounted for by the fact that there
of the races. Most of the cases that exist
are people from Maryland and Virginia,
who come here to escape the law in their
own States