Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1893-09-01
Color-Blind Cupid.
fPittshnre Commercial G azette. }

(Pittsburg Commercial Gazette.)
Since the days wnen the fair Desdemona |
of Shakespeare creation fell deeply in love
with othello, the jealous Moore, it seems
TO have been the custom for white women
to become enamored of colored men. In
this city the custom exists to startling
degree, and the Freeman Lawton tragedy
Just enacted recalls the fact that in the
last twenty years the increase in this prac-
tice has been very marked. In the various
low quarters of tbs city, such as Jones
avenue, second avenue above Try street, in
many streets of the hill district, in the
Fifteenth ward, in the vicinity of the Black
Diamond steel works, blacks and whites
may be found mingled together at every
lurn. In many cases OF this character the
black man and white woman are man and
wife. and they seem to live happily togeth
@.
N. J. Dean, late superintendent of the
Humane society. had met during his term
| of office many cases of this kind and he
says that these same exist to-day.
Take Jones avenue, for instance, and
you will find white women by the score CO
| habitiug with negroes. Some of these
women have .left good homes and hus-
bands. and even children, to igo and live
with men whose faces are blacker than
night. l have known an instance of where
| two handsome young white girls whose
parents were Irish, became infatuated with
coal blEck darkeys aud left thar homes
| and friends to 90 with their dusky lovers.
"There are quite a number of white
| women married to colored men in the hill
| district. One very handsome blonde Is
the wife of a barber. Her husband ia a
| mulatto. There is another family of col
ored people in this city whose father was
a full-blooded white man. His wife was
| great. big, slovenly looking negress. AT
| forwards the father committed suicide by
| drowning.
| II know another instance where white
| woman, who at present cleans offices on
| Grant street. has became infatuated vita
a barber doing business in that locality.
She is pure Caucasian, but believe she
is fast growing to look like her dusky
| lover.
| - 'nThen there is a case of a well-knOwn
business man of this city whose sister mar
ried a colored employe of the Monongahela
house. That created quite sensation at
the time and then the brother of the woman
visited the hotel for the purpose ofdemand-
ing satisfaction from the black brother-in-
| law and the later drove him from the hotel
| kitchen ct the point of knife. great
many of these miseegenations have their
origin in the large hotels. Here white
domestics and scullery maids are thrown
considerably into the company of colored
| walters, cooks, porters, etc, and IN that
way natural attachments are formed. On
ly last week two girls were sent to Nor
ganza on account of their shameful and
| disgraceful escapdes with two negroes.
"In Allentown, Thirty first ward, there
are three families Sresiding on the same
street. the head of each is a black man,
while the consorts are white.
"a visit to the colored churches on any
Sunday will disclose a number of cases OF
where white women have taken to them
selves dusky life partners, but only rarely
can a case be discovered where white mer
| bova married colored women"