The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-22
UNCLE TOMS CABIN.

The newspapers tell us that the gifted woman who wrote that won derful work, "Uncle Toms Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly," is lying upon her bed of death. have just re- read with interest Mir. Charles O.. Stickney's article relating Miss Cush- ing's "reminiscences of Mrs. Stowe at the time she was engaged in writing her great book, which found repub- lished in TIE TRAVELLER from the De- troit Free Press. Mir. Stickney says that Mrs. Stowe had great difficulty in finding publisher for the story, In
 book form, and that 1t "drew little at- tention from the public at large" dur ing its original publication as serial in the National Era, an anti slavery paper published at Washington.
 As to the first statement know nothing, but the second l can only re- gard as incorrect. have it upon the authority of the mailing clerk of the National Era at the time the story was published that it ran the circula- tion of that journal up from few thousands to over thirty thousand, 8 great circulation for that day. That seems to me to be drawing great at tention from the public, instead of little.
 Moreover, the story was widely ad- vertised by the discussion it aroused in the papers throughout the country The southern papers generally and the pro- slavery papers of the north all at- lacked it, accusing 1t of presenting false or exaggerated descriptions of slave life. Of course the anti-slayery pa- pers defended it. Out of these attacks grew the "Key to Uncle Toms Cabin," afterward published. The editor of the National Era, Dr. Briley, think, instructed his mailing clerk to never refuse an exchange with a southern paper. He further directed him to examine all these papers from week to week and to cut therefrom and pre- serve all accounts and ad vertiser;esss of runaway negroes, and generally everything which would go to sus- tain the picture presented by "Un- cle Toms Cabin" This task was faithfully performed, and from the mass thus collected the material was selected from which the "key" was wrought. Among the things used, I recollect, were large number of ad- vertisements of runaway slaves which were embellished with & cut of negro with bundle sluDg on stick thrown across his shoulder, while he was sup posed to be eDdeavoriBg to reach a station of the "underground railway,s where he would take passage to Canada, then the slaves "happy land of Canaan"
 The mailing clerk I refer to is still with us. hale and hearty man, though now on the shady side of fifty. That his memory of those days is good, was shown some years ago in a remarkable way. When he used to write the wrappers of the Era he always put the county on. About five years ago he happened to be present when a l similar work was going on in behalf | of new publication. He found that 1 upon the naming of any of the towns to which he had formerly sent the Era | he could call the county 1t was in. He was tested with hundreds of names fin | the northern states, naturaIiy), and he was successful in every instance. He said that for many years, . quarter of a century, at least, he had not had oc- casion to use this knowledge and did not know that his memory still re- taiDed 1t until accident demonstrated that 1t did. can but regard this as notable feat of memory, quite as much % in its way as some of those 's Marvellous Memories" told about in