Year: 1860

Mr.. EDIroR:-The receipt of the can
glo-African Magazine" and the weekly
Anglo-African" up to the close of the year
seems to call for a line or SO from this cold
corner of Ohio, when the closing of canals
rivers, and lakes shuts out for season all
communication with the rest of the world,
except what little we can CLEAN from the
few public journals that come weekly to
the farming district around.


AS think 1 remarked to you once be-
fore, Toledo (eight or ten miles from here
has but few colored people permanently To-
Gated there. The few large hotels, built
mainly with view to accommodate travel
ers passing by railroad, bring quite a num-
Der of colored men as laborers; but, with
few exceptions, they come and go as their
pecuniary views guide them Hence few
become citizens, and but quite a small
number of those seem to take much inter
est in what is going on in the great world
outside. Hence / have had but few op-
portunities to present your publications,
although 1 have frequently loaned them in
order to induce people to subscribe.


From some cause or other, anti-slavery
lecturers do not often present themselves
here, although there appears to be no lack
of interest on the part of the whites when
ever called upon to hear lecture on the
claims of the oppressed. While in Toledo
on business during last fall, was told by
some of the white citizens that they had
attended lecture delivered by a Miss
Watkins, and expressed themselves highly
delighted at the eloquence and force with
which she presented the claims of the op-
pressed race. presume the lecturer al
luded to was Miss Frances Ellen Watkins,
whose contributions SO often grace your
magazine.


Of the Virginia tragedy-the last page
of the blood-stained record of American
slavery down to the close of 1S59-all
right thinking minds in this part of Ohio
loathe more than ever the bitter fruit of
the accursed tree of slavery, the only ex-
ception to the rule being the sham Democ-
racy or "Union-savers," who, like most car
rion birds, scent their prey afar off. see
in looking over the public journals that the
champions of freedom on the other side Of
the Atlantic are entering their indignant
protest against the actsrs in the scenes of
violence and cold -blooded murder in Vir-
ginia, and charge our "Model Republic" as
the guilty principle in the deeds that
shroud our vaunted "stars and stripes" in
everlasting intamy in the estimation of the
civilized world.


Despite the anathemas and bitter de-
nunciations hurled against that class of Alb
olitionists who are opposed to slavery be-
cause it is the "sum of all villainies," |
think that the Shareholders of the South
owe them debt of gratitude instead of
hatred, Since, but for the forlorn hope of
peaceful deliverance by the Abolitionists
long entertained by the mass of bondmen
in the South, that "sea of blood lying be-
tween the slave and emancipation" (as a
Southern NJ @. said not long since. would
have long since been crossed. Time and
again have Abolitionists thrown themselves
in the breach between the insolent master
and the outraged slave, and bade the latter
wait the issue of another, and still another,
peaceful effort to secure liberty to the cap
tive. Alas at what fearful amount of
human suffering has the poor slave waited
for the promised boon At the threshold
of 1860, over the violated graves at the
foot of the Virginia scaFold, and from the
rocky tomb at North Elba, comes the ques-
ton with startling emphasis, "Are the four
million slaves of the South any nearer
freedom to-day than they were in 1859 p
Teach the slave henceforth that ''the gods
help those who help themselves" and the
mighty answer to the question shall star
tie despots from their slumbers over a mine
ready to be sprung beneath their feet. Let
shareholders and their Northern aiders
and abetters lay the Aattering JUNCTION to
their souls, if they will, that the slaves are