CHAPTER XXXI.
"Take the spade of Perseverance,
Dig the field of Progress wide;
Every bar to true instruction
Carry out and cast aside."
The anniversary of West India emancipation was celebrated here on Monday last. But little notice of the intended meeting had been given, yet the capacious lecture-room of St. Martin's Hall was filled at an early hour with a most respectable audience, who appeared to have assembled for the sake of the cause.
Our old and well-tried friend, Geo. Thompson, Esq., was unanimously called to preside, and he opened the proceedings with one of his characteristic speeches. The meeting was then addressed by the Rev. Wm. Douglass, a colored clergyman of Philadelphia, in a most eloquent and feeling manner. Mr. Douglass is a man of fine native talent.
Francis W Kellogg, of the United States, was the next speaker. Mr. Kellogg is an advocate of temperance, of sonic note, I believe, in his own country, and has been lecturing with considerable success in Great Britain. He is one of the most peculiar speakers I have ever heard. Born in Massachusetts, and brought up in the West, he has the intelligence of the one and the roughness of the other. He has the retentive memory of Wendell Phillips, the overpowering voice of Frederick Douglass, and the too rapid gestures of Dr. Delany. He speaks faster than any man I ever heard, except C. C. Burleigh. His speech, which lasted more than an hour, was one stream of fervid eloquence. He gave the audience a better idea of a real American stump orator than they ever had before. Altogether, he is the best specimen of the rough material out of which great public speakers are manufactured that I have yet seen. Mr. Kellogg's denunciations of Clay and Webster (the dead lion and the living dog) reminded us of Wendell Phillips; his pictures of slavery called to memory Frederick Douglass in his palmiest days; and his rebuke of his own countrymen for their unchristian prejudice against color brought before us the favorite topic and best speeches of C. L. Remond. It was his maiden speech on the subject of slavery, yet it was the speech of the evening.
Hatred to oppression is so instilled into the minds of the people in Great Britain, that it needs but little to arouse their enthusiasm to its highest point; yet they can scarcely comprehend the real condition of the slaves of the United States. They have heard of the buying and selling of men, women and children, without any regard to the tenderest ties of nature; of the passage and execution of the infamous Fugitive Slave Law; and, as we walk through the streets of London, they occasionally meet an American slave, who reminds them of the fact that while their countrymen are boasting of their liberty, and offering an asylum to the exiled of other countries, they refuse it to their own citizens.
Much regret has been expressed on this side of the Atlantic that Kossuth should have kept so silent on the slavery question while in America; and this act alone has. to a great extent, neutralized his further operations in this country. He certainly is not the man now that he was before his visit to the New World.
I seldom pass through the Strand, or other great thoroughfares of the metropolis, without meeting country-men of mine. I encountered one, a short time since, under peculiar circumstances. It was one of those days commonly experienced in London, of half cloud and half sunshine, with just fog enough to give everything a gray appearance, that I was loitering through Drury Lane, and came upon a crowd of poor people and street beggars, who were being edified by an exhibition of Punch and Judy, on the one hand, and an organ-grinder, with a well-dressed and intelligent-looking monkey, on the other. Punch looked happy, and was performing with great alacrity, while the organ-grinder, with his loud-toned instrument, was furnishing music for the million. Pushing my way through the crowd, and taking the middle of the street for convenience' sake, I was leaving the infected district in greater haste than I entered it. I had scarcely taken my eyes off the motley group, when I observed a figure approaching me from the opposite direction, and walking with a somewhat hasty step. I have seen so much oddity in dress, and the general appearance of members of the human family, that my attention is seldom ever attracted by the uncivilized look of any one. But this being whom I was meeting, and whose appearance was such as I had not seen before, threw the monkey and his companions entirely in the shade. In fact, all that I had beheld in the Great Exhibition, of a ludicrous nature, dwindled away into utter insignificance when compared to this Robinson Crusoe looking man; for, after all. it turned out to be a man. He was of small stature, and, although not a cold day, His person was enveloped in a heavy over-coat, which looked as if it had seen some service, and had passed through the hands of some of the second-hand gentlemen of Brattle-street, Boston. The trousers I did not see. as they were benevolently covered by the long skirts of the above garment. A pair of patent-leather boots covered a small foot. The face was entirely hidden by a huge beard, apparently from ten to fifteen inches in length, and of a reddish color. Long, dark hair joined the beard, and upon the head was thrown, in a careless manner, one of those hats known in America as the wide-awake, but here as the billy-cock. A pair of bright eyes were entirely hid by the hair around the face. I was not more attracted by his appearance than astonished at the man's stopping before me, as if he knew me. I now observed something like smoke emanating from the long beard round the mouth. I was immediately seized by the individual by his right hand, while the left hand took from his mouth a pipe about three inches in length, stem included, and, in a sharp, shrill voice, sounding as if it came from the interior of a hogshead or from a sepulchre, he called me by my name. I stood for a moment and eyed the figure from head to foot, "from top to toe," to see if I could discover the resemblance of any one I had ever seen before. After satisfying myself that the object was new, I said, "Sir, you have the advantage of me." "Don't you know me?" he exclaimed, in a still louder voice. I looked again, and shook my head. "Why," said he, "it is C———." I stepped back a few feet, and viewed him once more from top to bottom, and replied, "You don't mean to say that this is H. C———?" "Yes, it is he, and nobody else." After taking another look, I said, "An't you mistaken, sir, about this being H. C———?" "No," said he. "I am sure I know myself." So I very reluctantly had to admit that I was standing in presence of the ex-editor of the "L. P. and H. of F." Indeed, one meets with strange faces in a walk through the streets of London. But I must turn again to the question of slavery.
Some months since a lady, apparently not more than fifty years of age, entered a small dwelling on the estate of the Earl of Lovelace, situated in the county of Surrey. After ascending a flight of stairs, and passing through a narrow passage, she found herself in a small but neat room, with plain furniture. On the table lay copies of the Liberator and Frederick Douglass' Paper. Near the window sat a young woman, busily engaged in sewing, with a spelling-book laying open on her lap. The light step of the stranger had not broken the silence enough to announce the approach of any one, and the young woman still sat at her task, unconscious that any one was near. A moment or two, and the lady was observed, when the diligent student hastily rose, and apologized for her apparent inattention. The stranger was soon seated, and in conversation with the young woman. The lady had often heard the word "slave," and knew something of its application, but had never before seen one of her own sex who had actually been born and brought up in a state of chattel slavery; and the one in whose company she now was was so white, and had so much the appearance of an educated and well-bred lady, that she could scarcely realize that she was in the presence of an American slave. For more than an hour the illustrious lady and the poor exile sat and carried on a most familiar conversation. The thrilling story of the fugitive often brought tears to the eyes of the stranger. O, how I would that every half-bred, aristocratic, slave-holding, woman-whipping, negro-hating woman of America could have been present and heard what passed between these two distinguished persons! They would, for once, have seen one who, though moving in the most elevated and aristocratic society in Europe, felt it an honor to enter the small cottage and take a seat by the side of a poor, hunted and exiled American fugitive slave. Let it be rung in the ears of the thin-skinned aristocracy of the United States, who would rather receive a flogging from the cat-o'-nine-tails than to sit at the table of a negro, that Lady Noel Byron, widow of the great poet, felt it a peculiar pleasure to sit at the table and take tea with Ellen Craft. It must, indeed, be an interesting fact to the reader, and especially to those who are acquainted with the facts connected with the life and escape of William and Ellen Craft, to know that they are industrious students in a school, and attracting the attention of persons occupying the most influential positions in society. The wonderful escape of William and Ellen Craft is still fresh in the minds of all who take an interest in the cause of humanity; and their eluding the pursuit of the slave-hunters at Boston, and final escape from the Athens of the New World, will not be soon forgotten.
Every American should feel a degree of humiliation when the thought occurs to him that there is not a foot of soil over which the Stars and Stripes wave upon which Ellen Craft can stand and be protected by the constitution or laws of the country. Yet Ellen Craft is as white as most white women. Had she escaped from Austrian tyranny, and landed on the shores of America, her reception would have been scarcely less enthusiastic than that which greeted the arrival of Jenny Lind. But Ellen Craft had the misfortune to be born in one of the Slave States of the American Union, and that was enough to cause her to be driven into exile for daring to escape from American despotism.