Servitude for life: an answer to Thomas Carlyle by J. M. Ludlow.
Frederick Maximus--“Harkee here, Dan, you black nigger rascal. You're no longer a slave, you're a servant hired for life.” T. C. Nigger--“By golly! Wife and chil'n servants for life too, massa?” F. M.--“Yes, all you niggers. But you must work all the same, you know.” T. C. N.--“Iss, massa. What wages you gib?” F. M.--“Wages, you rascal? Quart of corn a day, and three shirts and pantaloons a year; for legal hours of work, fourteen hours a day for half the year, and fifteen the other half.” 1 T. C. N.--“Any priv'leges, massa?” F. M.--“Privileges! Ha! ha! Yes, privileges of John Driver's whip, or of such other punishment as I choose to inflict, and of not being believed on oath if you go and peach against me, and of being sold down South when I please, and of being converted by any parson whom I choose to allow.” T. C. N.--“Hm. Wife and chil'n my own dis time, mass?” F. M.--“Ha! ha! ha! Yes — till I or Mr. Overseer want them. But you have the privilege of taking another wife as often as I allow it, and of having as many children as it pays me to bring up.” T. C. N.--“Beg pardon, massa, but what for you call me servant hired for life?” F. M.--“What for, you rascal? Because a great man, after whom I named you, when he had written a d — d good book on the ‘nigger question,’ says that is all the difference between you and those mean, white-livered Yankee working-men, who are hired by the month or the day.” T. C. N.--“Massa, if him book good book, why's I not priv'leged to learn read it?” F. M.--“Read, you infernal scoundrel! Why, if any one were to help you to learn, the law gives him fine and imprisonment or lashes,2 and what do you suppose you'd get? So off with you----. Stay — how old is that yellow nigger, your wife's daughter?” T. C. N.--“Born three weeks ‘fore Miss Susy, massa.” F. M.--“She'll fetch a right smart price at Mobile, now that New-Orleans--” T. C. N. (Aside while passing away)--“Dey say de Yankees an't bery long way. Wish dey was heeah. Wish dey'd gib me a rifle ‘fore I dies.” --Macmillan's Magazine. Carlyle and his “nutshell.” Carlyle pours the dregs of his once fertile brainIn a nutshell, the great cause of Freedom to stain;
But the gall he has used foils the foolish attack,
And dyes himself darker than African-black.
