The New York herald., 1922-06-11

domestic slaves, &C. we might say
on behalf of the book, to which the
Southern Press devotes it's leading
article, column in length, that it
is mistake to affirm that the worst
features Of slavery only are selected
in the portraiture given by the au-
thor. On the contrary, she sets be-
fore her readers a picture, honor
able not to the institution but to
many who. live under it, of
planters family, the slaves Of which
are treated with exemplary kind
ness and unvarying humanity, a
kindness not merely good natured
and well meaning but judicious and
painstaking."
DUT of course for the really vitri-
- olic reviews it is necessary to
turn to the newspapers and maya
zines of the South Of the period.
There is a wide choice. The Weekly
Picayune of New Orleans expressed
itself when it was proposed to
dramatize Uncle Toms Cabin:
"rhe gross Misrepresentation of
the South which have been propa-
gated through the press with the
laudation of editors, politicians and
pious fanatics of the pulpit, are to
be presented in tableaux and the
lies they contain acted before
crowds of deluded spectators. The
stage is to be employed in depicting
to the people of the North the whole
body of the people of the South as
living In state Of profligacy,
cruelty and crime. tyrants who fear
not God and cruelty oppress their
fellow creatures. 1t is de-
plorable that a woman should be
the chief instrument in this labor
of mischief. We know nothing of
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe except
her book, but there is enough in
that to give her an odious notoriety.
She has too much mind not to CON-
prehend the wicked injustice and
dangerous consequences of the dis
torted picture she has drawn of
slave life and Southern morals. She
knows that picture of Northern
society, in which the Polly Bodines,
the Ann Hoags and John w. Web
sters portrayed as true representa-
tives of the principles and habits
OF New York or Massachusetts
would be as correct in material
facts as her story of planting life
in the South"
COON after the publication of
~ Uncle Toms Cabin there
appeared a book entitled "The Key
to Uncle Toms Cabin" That was
the work that stirred the particular
ire of the Southern Messenger of
Richmond, probably the leading lit
erary review of the South. "A propos
OF The Key to Uncle Toms Cabin
Mrs. Stowe protrudes herself again
upon our notice, and though we
have no predictions for the dis
gusting Office of castigating such
onenses as hers and rebuking the
incendiary publications of a woman.
yet the character of the present at
tack and the bad emanations which
she and her books have both won
render a prompt notice of the pres
ent encyclopedia of slander even
more necessary than any reply to
her previous fiction. Her second
appearance on the stage of civil dis
sension and social polemics is much
changed from what it was at the
time when her first revelations
we're given to the world. She was
then an obscure Yankee school
mistress, eaten up with fanaticism.
fostering with the malignant virus
of abolitionism, self-sanctified by
the virtues of a Pharasaic religion
devoted to the assertion of women's
rights, and an enthusiastic believer
in many neoteric heresies, but she
was comparatively harmless as
being almost entirely nnknnwn