The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1902-03-21

THE LEoPARD's SPOTS. by Thomas
Dixon. Jr.:
doubleday. Page & Co. For sale by
Preston a. Rounds. Price $3.50.
Readers of a somewhat familiar book
about the ante bellum south. by Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe. will regard with
mingled emotions what the Rev Thomas
Dixon Jr., discloses I'm this book OF
'"rhe Leopard's Spots" with respect TO
the notoriously immortal Simon Legree.
IL appears that he was not as dead as
Mrs. Stowe would have had us believe.
At least Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr.. revives
him for the purpose of this book and uses
him, warmed over, to considerable ad-
Vantage. Or. perhaps. II Is only his
double, one of the two Legrees." which
the up-to-date Uncle Tom play introduces
along with double Uncle Toms and double
other characters TO give new zest TO
the old-time show i'm the rural districts.
The revived Simon becomes the friend of
the blackman i'm Mr. Dixon's book because
he Is selfish man looking out for num-
ber one all the time. and IL is to his adj
vantage TO join with the carpet baggers,
the Boston school teaching crowd and
other so-called friends" of the freedman,
who have been meddling In affairs of the
south since Lees surrender. When the
hiu hluN KAN ana Otner aldS 10 progress
and civilization succeed In restoring some
measure of old-time peace and home rule
in North Carolina, the scene of the story,
Legree is driven out OF town and goes
TO New York with two million dollars, the
same being the fruit of his robbery of
the helpless south. along with the Niger
crowd and the Boston school teacher
gang. With his ill-gotten two millions
''he bought seat In the Stock Exchange
and became one of the most daring and
successful of a group of robbers who
preyed on the industries OF the nation"
as we read in this imaginative romance.
Thus Simon Legree is doing very well
I'm this worlds goods, at least, and he
had &c need 10 enter the lists as a candi-
date against another black Republican
who. according to the romance. when
compelled to fee from an uncongenial at
mosphere of progress and civilization, was
rewarded for his long career of southern
oppression by an appointment as an
ambassador to one of the republics of .
South America, at a salary of $4,000 a
year" Incidentally IL may be observed
I'm passing. ii Rev. Dixon knows of any
$4,000 ambassadorships lying around in
South America, he would confer n favor
on office seekers i'm general by naming 1t.
In the scheme OF Republican and mig
ger-loving government, as outlined in
public documents. we are unable to find
any diplomatic post bigger than a minis
ter I'm South American republic. or any
salary SO gratifying as $4,000 down there.
Rev Thomas Dixon is known in the
North as a preacher of strenuousness and
conviction. Cautousness OF expression
was never one OF his strong points. In
''The Leopards Spots" he undertakes,
we assume, to present the Southern
point OF view OF the negro problem on
the same scale, perhaps, as the other
point of view has sometimes been pre-
sented conspicuously by Mrs. Stowe I'm
Uncle Toms Cabin" and Judge Tourjee
in "A Fools Errand" Rev. Dixon gives
us the portrait OF the loathsome negro
politician. and OF the miscellaneous lot OF
riff RAN. His story begins with the end of
the Civil War and concludes about the
presents an impasslonist view OF rape
and murder of a child and the burning To
death OF the wretch. II isn't pleasant
reading and we are pretty familiar with
equally spirited literary work from day
TO day I'm the newspapers. There is the
old slave drivers plea embodied I'm the IL
of the eloquent friend OF the
negro who yet Is indisposed TO let an in-
dividual OF the race wed his daughter
And there Is much else that will be likely
20 strike good many readers as old
straw threshed over. Through Il all, Or.
Dixon bites ddactic nails and tells ve-
hcment love story.
The text OF the sermon thus presented
I'm vigorous not TO say virulent. fiction IS
a quotation from Abraham Lincoln be-
ginning: ~ am not. nor ever have been
i'm favor OF bringing about I'm any way
the social and political equality of the
black and white races" The author OF
ssTbs IeOpa rlfq Cnote hrfnoe ,ht. tu..