Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1895-09-07

| -~aS,vS 49,
A PRECoCIoUS BLACK BOY.
only to the knees of his very black legs
which were bowed like animated paren-
theses. He wore a thin cotton waist
| to which his breeches were buttoned.
One sleeve was gone entirely, and the
other was fringed off at the elbow.
His hair was kinked close to his skull,
and his little black eyes shone with a
serpentine glitter. His teeth were
pure ivory, and his toes were like the
fippers of Mississippi river mud tur-
tie. He stood on the curbstone hurl-
ing contemptuous remarks and insults
at the driver of the ice wagon. The
driver endured it to the point beyond
which patience ceases to be virtue.
Then he turned in his seat and said:
"Oh, it's you, is it? You're fine
looking little boy, and guess I'll just
take you along, The night doctor told
me"
Nobody knows what the night doctor
told him, for at the mention of that
dreaded parsonage the small boy of
African descent turned with wild
bowed legs would let him.
might doctor" is term to conjure
with. As threat it is far more efficacious
than the 'gobbleens" or the ''bogie
man. or any other of the terrible crea-
lures called up to frighten naughty
boys and girls. And it isn't the chill
dren only who fear him. There S
scarcely negro in Washington who,
deep in his heart, isn't afraid of the
might DOCTOR" And night doctor is
something that people in many parts
of our country never heard of nor
imagined.
Somehow and at some time the inn
preston was made upon the minds of the
negroes of this city that every physician
takes especial delight in cutting people
up. He performs operations just for the
fun of carving his helpless victims, and
spends all his leisure time in dissecting
dead bodies. How does he get them?
Why, after dark he drives about the
town, and when he meets an unpro-
tected negro he snatches him up and
carries him off. That is the dreaded
might DOCTOR" and that is what be-
comes of all the colored people who
mysteriously disappear. That is the
negro theory.
Very many of our colored folks know
no law. They suffer the inconvenience
of ignorance entailed by an unfor-
tunate ancestry. The ties of marriage
and of consanguinity are very often
carelessly severed. Negro husbands or
fathers may hear that work can be had
for the asking in Pittsburgh, New
York or some other city, and they start
on foot or on freight cars, without go
ing to their homes, or sending word
that they are going away from the city.
| They cannot write letters, and their
families and friends only know that they
were in good health, but have disap-
peared. The only conclusion left to
their friends is that some might doc
tor has taken them unawares, carried
them off and dissected them.
Law, honey" said an old nanny,
one of the genuine, rare, ante-bellum
mammies, few of whom are still to be
black folks. They wants us to cut up,
but they don't keer for us-and the
night doctors! It's awful the things
they do to folks. / dom want nothin'
to do with these yere doctors, L tell
you. kin cure whatever gifts the
matter with my family, and I've taken a
load of sickness off many q quality
family, too. Yes, indeed, chile.
don want none of these yere doctors
cuttin' me up, an unless the night doc
tors gifts me amt goin' to have nothin
to do with no doctors neither"
She can cure; what is there she
hasn't remedy for? And doubtless
now and then she is quite as likely to
hit upon the right remedy as any
man with NJ. ID. after his name and q
framed certificate of graduation hang,
Ing on his office wall She knows all
there is to be known about those mys
terious things-babies; and of all the
babies she has welcomed On their first
appearance in this world of woe not
one but has been put through the
course she firmly believes in. Every
one of them was held towards the cell
ing before it was laid down, and every
one had its clothes put on every morn
ing over its feet, and not over iti
head, in order that it might go VI
and not down in the world.
: When the luclzless infant is fort
night or perhaps month old, nanny
says, steps must be taken to secure fol