The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1889-10-17
CiviIiSation' in New York.

The arrest of SIX girls III New YORK
on the charge of having caused the
death of their playmate, Julia O'Connor,
by brutally beating her, reveals another
of the many strange phases of metro
poltan civilization. The oldest of these
girls has not passed her 16rh year, but
they are all described as typical leigh
teenth warders," slough, and proud OF
it," Last July the unfortunate object
of their enmity was enticed by them
from her home and assaulted and beaten
so severely that she died last Saturday
from her injuries. Her assailants
wien brought before the Coroner showed
neither trepidation nor shame, and,
while denying the charge preferred
against them, discussed the fight in
which their former associate received
her injuries with great gusto and remln
scent relish. One of them, Julia Kelly,
described the occurrence in the follow.
ing classic language: "Why, it was no.
body's fault at all but Julia O'Connor's;
I'll swear to it," said Miss Kelly, en-
phatically. why, dat girl was holy
terror to de whole ward, and when de
fight came up and dey clinched dey went
down togedder. Julia tried to bite
Maggie's cheek. Don't bite me- says
Maggie, 'or III harm you Maggie
would a been badly bit if she hadn't
grabbed her by de hair. 1t was as lovely
a scrap as you ever see, an no mistake
about dat" Maggie Miller, who is re
ferred toby Miss Kelly" in the glow
ing description quoted above, seems
thoroughly to deserve the admiration of
her combative female friends. "She
stood up before me-" said
Captain Clinchy of the eigh-
teenth precinct, ''just after she was
arrested last August, and squared beE,
self off like prize fighter. Il did her
up, she said, and see seemed to be very
| proud of it," Even more remarkable
| than a civilization which generates
female toughs and prize fighters at six
teen is that which has evolved from the
English language the negro dialect that
a white girl in New York uses as if it
we're here mother tongue. But where
has she learned itl How has she picked
it up2 The colored population of New
York is not large enough to have left
the impress of its dialect upon English
as she is spoke" even in the free-and-
easy eighteenth ward, and yet Miss
Kelly" uses the lingo with all the facility
of colored native of Virginia. Aud
"Miss Kelly" is not alone in her pro-
ficiency in this line. 1t seems to be an
outward mark and characteristic of the
"tough" citizen in New York and other
Northern cities that his English is
fashioned after the uneducated slave
phi as !ology and forms so familiar in
the South. This curious development
| in the North is rendered all the more
irregular when we remember the fact
that IN the Southern States even the
poorer classes of whites, who have
heard the negro dialect all their lives,
rarely fall into any of its barbarous ex-
pressons, and never adopt it so COM
pletely as "Miss Kelly" of New York,
seems to have done. The explanation
of this strange perversion of" English
may, perhaps, be found in civilization
that is fast becoming sort of inter
national hotch-potch, and in which our
native tongue is becoming as mixed as
the population. Baltimore Sun.