A thing to make all christians sad and shivery And living-so to speak-in Satan's livery! Money-the root of evil,-dross, and stuff! While he whose fortune was at least a brittle one, Moved by this logic, or appall'd, To persons of a certain turn so proper The money came when call'd. In silver, gold, and copper, Presents from "Friends to blacks," or foes to whites, And charitable lifts, Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. An iron kettle. The Dowager Lady Scannel, A piece of flannel. Rebecca Pope, A bar of soap. Mr. T. Groom, A stable broom, And Mrs. Grubb, A tub. Great were the sums collected! And great results in consequence expected. But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavour, According to reports At yearly courts, The blacks, confound them! were as black as ever! Yes! spite of all the water sous'd aloft, And scourers in the office strong and clever, The blacks, confound them, were as black as ever! In fact in his perennial speech, The Chairman own'd the niggers did not bleach, From being washed and soaped, A circumstance he named with grief and pity; For self and the Committee, By persevering in the present way, And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, Lull'd by this vague assurance, The friends and patrons of the sable tribe And waited, waited on with much endurance- Many a stinted widow, pinching mother- But, spite of pounds or guineas, The plaguy negroes and their piccaninnies Showing a little gray upon their polls, However, nothing dashed By such repeated failures, or abash'd, With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous, Who willingly receiving chaff for corn, As pointed out by Butler's tact, However, in long hundreds there they were, Alas! concluding in the usual strain, That what with everlasting wear and tear, The tubs and pails too shatter'd to be mended- "In fact, the negroes were as black as ink, And hoped the proposition was not rash, But ere the prospect could be made more sunny Up jump'd a little, lemon-coloured man, "Why!" said the Chairman, with an accent bland, And gentle waving of his dexter hand, Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust, The why, sir, very easily is told, Because Humanity declares we must! We've scrubb'd the negroes till we've nearly killed 'em, We mean to gild 'em!” THE POOR DEVIL. BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ. It was in a dream, a vision generated during an after-dinner doze by the fireside, that a many-faced portrait presented itself to my eyes. Through his torn and scanty garments pierced the raw wind of a night in February. The rain, too, had done its work, and he seemed cut to the heart with cold. Weariness and hunger, added to his helplessness, so that he crept along close to the wall at a very slow pace; until turning down a miserable alley in the meanest part of the town, he stopped at an old creaking house, the door of which stood open, and descended by three or four steps into a dark passage, that looked like a grave. Along this he groped his way to a narrow staircase, up which he dragged his limbs with difficulty to the top, where a garret, whose broken casement, lately repaired with paper, admitted the wind that now fairly rocked the rickety tenement, received its weekly hirer. Here a feeble light was, after many fruitless efforts, procured, and the shattered panes being presently stopped up, so as partially to exclude the blast, its dull rays flickered on the bare discoloured walls of the sloping-roofed chamber, disclosing its empty fireplace, and its low comfortless bed in one corner, covered with a blanket. On a shelf in another corner, were some stale fragments of a meal; and to these, seating himself at a table beside the fireless grate, the weary and famished wanderer (at length at home) applied himself, in a manner indicating that there was nothing unusual in the scantiness of the fare, and the chilling misery of the scene. Soaked to the skin, solitary and desolate, his face, although expressive enough of physical want and wretchedness, evinced no sense of any suffering not frequently experienced. The dry, cold repast finished, his wet clothes were thrown off, and merciful sleep snatched him from the loathsome realities of his condition, wrapping him in a welcome oblivion. But before daybreak, long before, the same wet clothes were resumed, and he crept in pitch darkness down the stairs, still slippery with the mud of yesterday, to commence another dismal day of drudgery, hardship, and contumely, for a pittance that barely sufficed to keep the little flame of life which yet lent a ghastly light to his eyes, from going out altogether. And the next day, and the next, from winter to winter, year after year, as from infancy to midlife it had been, it was the same. His had been one unvarying round of low grovelling care, and hopeless penury. In youth, without a spark of energy, without one throb of honourable ambition, with no spur, save that of sharp hunger, to urge him forward, he had crawled on when compelled, and had received the cuffs of the world with a patience that looked at last like indifference. He could say nothing, he could do nothing in return. He was a wight whom everybody put upon, because he knew so well how to bear. No ill-usage came amiss to him. So far from having spirit to resent a blow, he took it as a portion of his destiny, against which it were vain to struggle. He seemed by his very impotence and pitifulness to have a right to be despised. The only touch of tenderness ever mingled with the rough knocks and insults allotted to him by his fellow-mortals, came now and then in a kind of scornful pity, expressed in the exclamation, "Poor devil!" -a touch of tenderness not unaccompanied perhaps, by a half goodnatured, half-treacherous kick. As he became more and more imbecile and spiritless, his patience became more dogged, and the cuffs and crosses severer. Extra service was extracted from him by his task-master for less money; every mile he was set trudging, grew into a mile and a half; and the heavy burdens doubled themselves on his drooping shoulders; yet he was expected to be back sooner than ever. "Wretch! do you take an hour to walk four miles, carrying only two hundred-weight!" All felt that they had a prescriptive right to oppress him, because oppression was a thing he was used to. He expected it. But it was not alone intentional insult and ill-usage that weighed him down, and made his forty years three-score and ten; Ill-luck ever delighted to attend upon him. Fate, as well as his fellow-men, seemed to conspire against him. In his passage through the crowd of life, the pitiless storm was ever in his teeth; and as if this were not enough, he was always doomed to catch the drippings of other people's umbrellas. |