White conquest

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

WHITE CONQUEST

VOL. II.

LONDON : PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODK AND CO., NEW-STREET SQCAHE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

WHITE CONQUEST

WILLIAM HEPWOETH DIXON

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1876

, 2.

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. LOUISIANA 1

II. REIGN OF ANARCHY 11

III. WHITE REACTION 21

IV. GENERAL SHERIDAN 34

V. THE STATE HOUSE 43

VI. INVASION! 54

VII. BANDITTI 65

VIII. THE CONSERVATIVES 80

IX. GOVERNOR WARMOTH 91

X. CARPET-BAGGERS 101

XL THE ROTUNDA 112

XII. GEORGIA 123

XIII. BLACK ASCENDANCY 134^

XIV. CHARLESTON . . . 144

M6325S6

vi CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER PAGE

^XV^, SHADES OF COLOUR 159

XVI. COLOURED PEOPLE AT SCHOOL 168

XVII. VIRGINIA . . .175

XVIII. Ax WASHINGTON 186

XIX. OUR YELLOW BROTHER 198

XX. MONGOL MIGRATION 208

XXI. THE CHINESE LEGEND 217

XXII. HEATHEN CHINEE 229

XXIII. CHINESE LABOUR 236

XXIV. A CELESTIAL VILLAGE 250

XXV. CHINA TOWN 259

XXVI. YELLOW AGONY • . . 270

XXVII. WHITE PROGRESS -.283

XXVIII. PHILADELPHIA . . 291

XXIX. FAIR WOMEN 300

XXX. CRUSADERESSING 312

XXXI. THE WORKMAN'S PARADISE 321

XXXII. SOBER BY LAW 329

XXXIII. ILLITERACY IN AMERICA 340

XXXIV. AMERICA AT SCHOOL 347

XXXV. THE SITUATION 355

XXXVI. OUTLOOK . .366

WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER I.

LOUISIANA.

ST. CHARLES ! Eighteen miles from New Orleans.
Another hour ! We try to eatch the landscape as
the pools and marshes, cedars and palniettoes slip
behind us ; but we try in vain to fix our minds on
trifles by the way. A grove of orange trees, the
fruit all burning ripe, arrests attention and provokes
a cry of rapture ; yet the coolest brain among us
frets and flutters, for we know that we are driving
towards a scene of strife, on which the eyes and
hearts of forty millions of people are fixed in pas
sionate hope and dread.

President Grant affirms that 4 anarchy reigns in
Louisiana.' No one doubts the fact ; but General
McEnery and the White citizens assert that this
4 reign of anarchy ' was introduced by Grant, and

VOL. II. B

2 WHITE CONQUEST.

is maintained in New Orleans for purposes of his
own. This c reign ' began, they say, two years ago,
on the receipt by Stephen B. Packard of a telegram
in these words : —

1 Washington : Department of Justice, Dec. 3, 1872.

'You are to enforce the decrees of the United
States Courts, no matter by whom resisted, and
General Emory will furnish you with the necessary
troops for that purpose.

4 GEORGE H. WILLIAMS,

' Attorney-General.'

This message was a riddle. Stephen B. Packard
is a carpet-bagger, whom the President has sent
to New Orleans as United States Marshal. General
Emory is a Federal officer commanding the Depart
ment of the Gulf. But who were Marshal Packard
and General Emory to fight ? No mandate of the
United States Courts had been resisted in New
Orleans. No opposition was expected by those
Courts. Judge Durell, the only Federal magistrate
in Louisiana, had never made a complaint. Why,
then, was an inferior officer like Stephen B. Packard,
urged by Attorney-General Williams, President

LOUISIANA. 3

Grant's legal adviser, to call out troops in order to
execute the mandate of his court ?

The President was supposed to have two objects
in view at New Orleans ; first, to secure the State
vote for his second term as President ; second
to procure the State senatorship for his brother-
in-law, James B. Casey. For either of these pur
poses Federal troops might be employed by an un
scrupulous President ; but Judge Durell was trying
to get the Senatorship for Norton, and therefore
unlikely to assist in bringing Casey to the front.
Neither Governor Warmoth nor General McEnery
could make it out. Against whom was Packard
to march the Federal troops? Time solved the
mystery.

Stephen B. Packard got his telegram on Wednes
day night. Next evening, Durell sent for him to
his private lodgings on important business. Billings,
an attorney acting for the scalawags, was sitting at
Durell's table, writing out an order, which the
judge explained to his visitor. Packard was to
ask for troops, to march on the State House,
and to hold that edifice against all comers. In
New Orleans the Capitol is both executive office

4 WHITE CONQUEST.

and the legislative hall. Packard was to oust the
Governor, seize the archives, and close the doors.
When Billings had drawn and Darell signed his
warrant, Packard left the two lawyers, ran to the
barracks, got a company, and in the dead of night
attacked and occupied the Capitol.

ISTo living man, not even President Grant, pretends
to think that order of Durell lawful, or those pro
ceedings of Packard just.

Durell had his reward. Casey withdrew from
the contest for Senator, taking the snug and lucrative
berth of Collector, while Durell's friend Norton
was adopted by a scalawag county as their party
candidate.

General Warmoth, Governor of the State, was a
Fusionist : the Fusionists being a party of timid
people, led by Senator Jewell, who wished for
nothing so much as peace, and sank all points of
difference with their neighbours in order to oppose
the policy attributed to President Grant of meaning
to rule Louisiana and her sister States by the sword.
Warmoth's term of office was near an end. Jewell
proposed him for a second term ; but Jewell's advo
cacy failed. ' A second term for Warmoth, and no

LOUISIANA. 5

second term for Grant,' proved a bad cry. The contest
for Governor and Lieutenant-Governor lay between
General McEnery and General Penn, soldiers of local
name, on one side ; and William P. Kellogg, a lawyer
from Illinois, and Caesar C. Antoine, a Negro porter,
on the other side.

Each party claimed the victory, and till the
Chambers met no one could say how matters stood.
The evidence might have to go before the Supreme
Court of Louisiana ; but as six or seven weeks
remained of Governor Warmoth's term, there was
plenty of time to sift the lists before Louisiana should
find herself without a legal governor and a regular
government. McEnery was content to wait until the
Chambers met ; but Kellogg dared not face a chamber
meeting under Warmoth's orders ; and Kellogg's
movements brought about the reign of anarchy.

William Pitt Kellogg, a lawyer out of practice,
came from Illinois to New Orleans in search of
fortune. Hundreds of his neighbours do the same,
exchanging the frosts of Lake Michigan for the sun
shine on the Gulf. He brought to New Orleans a
carpet-bag, a glozing tongue, and a supply of senti
ment. John Brown was his hero, and in company

6 WHITE CONQUEST.

with John Brown's ' soul,' he inarched and chorused
till a Negro caucus ran him for the local Senate.
Lank and smooth, with sanctimonious garb and
speech, he won the Negro heart, and got Eepublicans
in Washington to mark him as a man to carry
out their plans. Kellogg was intriguing for the
State senator's chair, when the more lucrative and
dazzling prize of Governor swung before his eyes.
The place is worth eight thousand dollars a year in
gold. Except the Governor of Pennsylvania, who
receives ten thousand dollars a year, the Governor
of Louisiana has the highest pay of any governor
in the United States. Governor Coke of Texas has
only five thousand, Governor Houston of Alabama
only four thousand — Governor Ames of Mississippi
only three thousand dollars a year. Besides his
eight thousand a year, a Governor of Louisiana has
perquisites and patronage worth more than double
his official salary. If he wishes to make money
fast, and feels no scruple as to means, the wealth of
New Orleans, the commerce of the Gulf, are in his
hands. Governor Warmoth is said to have found a
fortune at the State House.

The highest prizes offered to "ambition by
the State appeared to lie within Kellogg's reach ;

LOUISIANA. 7

but he required much strength and skill to grasp
his prize. In everything save numbers his op
ponents were superior to his friends. McEnery
and Penn were men of wealth, position, and
repute, with every citizen of New Orleans and
every planter of Louisiana at their side. Kellogg
was a stranger in the city, having no other force
behind him than the scalawags, the Black leaguers,
and the Federal troops.

From Governor Warmoth he had nothing to ex
pect. Warmoth was trying a middle course. Like
Kellogg, Warmoth is a stranger on the Gulf. His
friends are scalawags and Negroes, but scalawags
and Negroes who have lost their faith in Grant.
Young, bold, and dexterous, Warmoth is not the
man to be discouraged by a single check. As
Governor he held the lists. It was his duty to
convene the Chambers, open the sessions, and
endorse the bills. Nothing could be done without
his signature. Might not this feud between Con
servatives and Cassarians be turned to good
account ? If neither Kellogg nor McEnery should
be able to prove his case, Warmoth, the only legal
officer, must continue to rule the State until a new
election was held, a new return verified, a new

8 WHITE CONQUEST.

convention held. Who knew what candidates might
be chosen on that second trial ? Many things wTere
in his favour. He was Governor. A moderate man,
he stood between two factions, neither of which
was strong enough to crush the other. Under him
there might be order. Under McEnery there was
likely to be disorder ; under Kellogg there was
certain to be anarchy.

Unable to trust Warmoth, and unwilling to meet
a chamber opened by him, Kellogg convened a
meeting of his partisans. It was Saturday morning ;
on Monday the Chambers were to meet. A Cham
ber organised by Warmoth would proceed to verify
the elections, and would probably refer the great
question as to which of the two candidates, McEnery
and Kellogg, was legally elected, to the judges of the
Supreme Court. Kellogg feared alike the senators
and the judges. But how was he to sweep them both
aside ?

Billings, the unscrupulous attorney, who was
acting in the Negro interest, proposed that Caesar
Antoine, the Negro porter, should be employed
to steal a march, not only on the Governor and
the Chambers, but on the local courts.

The scheme proposed by Billings was adopted

LOUISIANA. 9

and the Negro porter went before Judge Durell, not
in open court, but in the Judge's lodgings, and
exhibited a bill, setting forth a statement that,
whereas he, Caesar C. Antoine, had been duly
elected Lieutenant-governor of Louisiana, and
whereas he had reason to expect embarrassment in
entering on the said office, he prayed the United
States Court to grant him an order restraining
certain persons, named in a schedule prepared by
Billings, from doing any act, from speaking any
word, from giving any sign, in prejudice of his
claim to the said office of Lieutenant-governor.

The persons named in the schedule as likely to
prejudice Antoine's claims were one hundred and
thirty-five in number. The first was Governor
Warmoth. Next came the Secretary of State. Then
followed nineteen Senators, more than a hundred
representatives, and the members of both the Con
servative and Eepublican returning boards. In
short, this Negro asked Judge Durell to prohibit
the executive and legislative bodies of Louisiana
from doing any act in prejudice of his claims — for
five clear days ! Judge Durell granted him an order
in the terms set down.

President Grant is faithful to his tools ; yet

io WHITE CONQUEST.

President Grant has been compelled to own that
the order made by Judge Durell on the application of
Antoine was not only ' illegal ' but a ' grave mistake.'

Yet this ' illegal order ' was signed, and the
' grave mistake ' carried into full effect. These things
were not only done in ignorance, but are maintained
to-day, when the illegality is admitted, and the
c grave mistake ' denounced by President Grant
himself. In fact, this order, hardly to be matched
in absurdity by the edicts of Eio Jacques on the
Senegal, governs the domestic politics of Louisiana to
the present hour !

If Judge Durell had not signed that order, the
legislature of Louisiana would have met, and orga
nized itself under Governor Warmoth. It is all bu^
certain that Chambers freely organized would have
found McEnery and Penn duly elected to the execu
tive office. It is certain that the Supreme Court of
Louisiana would have sustained that finding. Under
a Conservative ruler, New Orleans might have found
such peace as reigns in Charleston and Ealeigh.

Judge Durell's order gave the partisans of Kellogg
an advantage over the citizens of Louisiana, and by
Kellogg's act the reign of ' anarchy ' began.

II

CHAPTER II.

REIGN OF ANARCHY.

Ox Monday morning, Packard, having the Repub
lican writs in his hand, the Federal soldiers at his
back, arrived at the Mechanics' Institute, in which
edifice the Assembly was to meet. Caesar C.
Antoine, holding Durell's order, stood at the door,
pointing out who should enter and who should not
enter. None but his friends were passed. Once
in the legislative hall, these lost no time in prate,
for Durell's order would expire on Wednesday, and
many things had to be done before the Conserva
tive members took their seats.

The first thing was to depose Governor War-
moth and obtain possession of his official lists. But
how was the lawful governor to be displaced ?

A Negro, named Pinchback, known familiarly as
Pinch, offered his services to Kellogg — at a price.
This Pinch, a bustling fellow, had been a steward on

12 WHITE CONQUEST.

board a steamboat, and afterwards an usher in a
gambling den ; but, like others of his tribe, he found
that politics paid him better than washing basins,
keeping doors, and dodging the police. As senator
for a Negro district he happened to have served
some weeks in office as successor to Lieutenant-
governor Dunn. His time was up ; but in America
titles cling to men for life. Once a professor
always a professor; once a Lieutenant-governor
always a Lieutenant-governor. Though lost to
office, Pinch had still a handle to his name.

This man seemed worth his salt, and Kellogg
came to terms with him. Pinch was to upset
Warmoth. If he succeeded, he was to be Acting
Governor for a few days, to have a large sum
of money, and, if Norton could be set aside, to go
as senator to Washington.

These terms being settled, Billings led Pinch
into the Senate Chamber, and, by help of Cassar
C. Antoine, seated him as Lieutenant-governor in
the chair of state. In ten minutes Pinch organized
a house. Then he produced a paper, written out
by Billings, charging Governor Warmoth with
certain offences, and asking for his deposition. Ten

REIGN OF ANARCHY. 13

minutes more sufficed to get these articles read and
passed. The Federal troops were handy, under
Packard's orders, so that things were done as easily
as they were said. Pinch assumed the rank of
Acting Governor, took possession of the State
House, seized the Great Seal of Louisiana, and
proclaimed his advent to the world.

Seldom in either history or fiction have gro-
tesqueness and absurdity been carried to such
lengths. We sigh over the doings of Booking, the
tailor of Leyden, as a pitiful illustration of human
folly. We laugh at the impudence of Sancho, as a
pleasant creation of satiric art. But Minister and
Barrataria must look to their bays. If Bocking has
no rival, and Sancho no superior, Pinchback and
Antoine in high places have an air of burlesque not
easily surpassed.

War moth refused to recognise Pinchback, and
Pinchback was puzzled how to act even though
he had Packard and a guard of honour in his
ante-room. A duellist, who shoots his man as
coolly as he shoots his bird, General Warmoth was
not a man for Pinch to bully. The Conservative
members, too, on finding the Chambers closed to

i4 WHITE CONQUEST.

them, met elsewhere in protest, and appealed to
Warmoth, as the lawful Governor, for support against
a man who had no pretension to the rank and office
he assumed.

Kellogg contrived that Pinch should be proposed
as the republican candidate for Senator. Norton gave
way for him ; and it was hoped that his election
to the Senate might help to cover his illegal
acts. Yet Warmoth stood unmoved. Pinch ran to
Packard for advice, but Packard was afraid to
speak. Every lawyer in New Orleans told him the
warrants he was executing were illegal. No one in
authority recognised Pinch ; and Packard, brazen
as he was, declined to stir one step unless supported
by a message from the White House.

Unable to move without Pinch, as Pinch was
unable to move without Packard, Kellogg threw
himself on his patron, President Grant, and wired
this message to Attorney General Williams :—

<New Orleans: Dec. 11, 1872.

' If President in some way indicate recognition,
Governor Pinchback and Legislature would settle
everything.'

REIGN OF ANARCHY. 15

If President indicate — only indicate recognition
— in some way indicate — colourably indicate — re
cognition of Governor Pinchback, then — all will
be well.

George H. Williams is a man of large resources,
never failing in audacity, but lie was not prepared
to ask the President to recognise a Negro rowdy as
Governor of Louisiana, merely because that Negro
rowdy, in the absence of executive and legislature,
had squatted in the chair of State. But he was only
scrupulous as to forms. For Pinch as public man,
Williams had no respect ; for Pinch as party man, he
had a duty to perform. What could be done, without
too gross an outrage on public decency ? Pinch could
not be addressed as Governor ; neither could he be
recognised in open words. But, since he was acting
as Governor, he might be addressed as 'Acting
Governor,' and his functions, though not acknow
ledged, might be taken as c understood.' Williams
is adroit in vague and shadowy terms. Next day
this telegram, which fully established the reign of
anarchy, was sent from Washington to New
Orleans : —

1 6 WHITE CONQUEST.

Acting Governor Pinchback, New Orleans.

1 Department of Justice : Dec. 12, 1872.

' Let it be understood that you are recognized as
the lawful Executive of Louisiana, and that the body
assembled at the Mechanics' Institute is the lawful
Legislature of the State ; and it is suggested that
you make proclamation to that effect, and also that
all necessary assistance will be given to you and the
Legislature herein recognized to protect the State
from disorder and violence.'

On this authority from the Cabinet, Governor
Warmoth was deposed and Pinchback was in-
tailed in office by the Federal officers. Yet Pinch
was not at ease ; nor could he feel at ease, so
long as Governor Warmoth stayed in New Orleans.
This gentleman might meet him in the street,
and thrash him. Pinch was not desirous of a
thrashing, and having Federal judges, as well as
Federal generals at his back, he tried what law
could do to rid him of his terrible enemy.

A second Federal judge, named Elmore,
came to New Orleans, and Pinch appeared in

REIGN OF ANARCHY. 17

V

Elmore's court with his old articles against Governor
Warmoth, and prayed that the said Governor War-
moth should be declared deposed from his office.
Elmore had no jurisdiction in this case. Such
questions could be argued in the Supreme Court of
Louisiana, and in no other place. For Elmore to
hear the plaintiff was a contempt of court ; yet
Elmore read the articles, and, without hearing the
accused, declared that Governor Warmoth was de
posed. Eefusing to recognize this decree, Warmoth
appealed to the judges of Louisiana, who decided
that Elmore's proceedings were irregular, and his
decree of no effect. Elmore would not cancel his
decision, and the judges of Louisiana cited him for
contempt of court. He only jeered. Like Pinch,
he had a Federal army at his back. Through all
these usurpations General Emory stood by the
nominees of President Grant.

For four or five weeks Pinch ruled the State, as
Jacques rules his duchy in the ' Honeymoon.'
Jesters squibbed him as King Pinch, His Nigger
Majesty, Lord Paper Collar, and Marquis of Pomade.
They sent him false despatches, and printed comic
ukases in his name. At length, his reign was over,

VOL. n. c

1 8 WHITE CONQUEST.

and he handed the State House and the Great Seal
to Kellogg ; taking as his price the title of Governor,
the Senatorship in Washington, and all the openings
and emoluments of that chair.

Pinchback's entry in the Senate, where he
claimed a seat among the Shermans and Wilsons,
Boutwells and Camerons, grave and conscript fathers
of the republic, raised a storm which has not yet
subsided, though twenty-two months have passed
since he first laid his credentials on the table of that
house.

A committee was appointed by the Senate to
investigate his claim. The members of this com
mittee had to see that Pinch's credentials were in
order ; among other things to see that they were
signed and sealed by a lawful governor. Then the
whole question of Kellogg' s government came up.
A good majority of the committee were Eepub-
licans, and to give Pinch his seat was to strengthen
their party by a vote. But such a finding was
impossible for serious men. The Senators found
that Kellogg was not Governor of Louisiana ; that
his signature was worthless ; that the broad seal of
Louisiana had been improperly used ; and that
Pinchback had no claim to sit in Congress.

REIGN OF ANARCHY. 19

A debate arose on their report. No case was
ever argued in the Senate with more frankness of
expression. Three Senators in five would have been
glad, for party reasons, to support Kellogg and
admit Pinchback ; but the Senators were driven by
facts to a conclusion dead against their pariy
interests, and extremely honourable to them as
individual gentlemen. A long debate ended in the
adoption of the committee's report. The Senate not
only declared that Kellogg was not the lawful
Governor of Louisiana, and Pinchback not the
lawful Senator for Louisiana, but directed that a new
election should be held, so that the 'reign of
anarchy ' might be put down in true republican
fashion, by a public vote.

When pressed by the Senate to explain his
action, President Grant admitted that the late elec
tion in Louisiana was ' a gigantic fraud.' He
yielded to the Senate, that a new election ought to
be held, so as to ascertain whether General
McEnery or William P. Kellogg was the popular
choice ; but he reserved to his cabinet the right of
choosing a convenient time for calling on the citizens
of Louisiana to exercise their right.

20 WHITE CONQUEST.

All parties being now agreed that the late
elections were void, Warmoth remained, as he con
tended, the legal Governor, bound to keep his seat
and hold the Seal till his successor had been named.

Nothing was done towards carrying out these
wishes of the Senate, these conclusions of the Presi
dent. Kellogg was afraid to face a second vote.
Promises had been made to the Negroes which he
could not keep. The Negro brain is dull, and offers
must be made in very plain terms. Thousands of
Negro votes had been obtained by a promise of
4 forty acres of land and a stout mule ' for each
vote. Thousands of Negroes were annoyed at the
postponement of these lands and mules, and it was
dangerous to tempt them in their angry mood. So
Kellogg was allowed by President Grant to put
off the new elections to a safer time.

Two Senates and three Governors contended
with each other for the mastery of New Orleans.
No man could tell where his allegiance lay. The
reign of anarchy was complete.

21

CHAPTEE III.

WHITE REACTION.

FOR seventeen months New Orleans groaned under
the yoke of Governors who could not rule, of As
semblies which were unable to pass bills, and of
Tribunals which reversed each other's decrees.

Kellogg, though backed by Grant, was re
pudiated by Congress. McEnery though supported
by the main body of White citizens in New Or
leans, was not recognised by the authorities at
Washington. The courts were open to Kellogg,
if he cared to try his right. Though taunted by
the citizens to take a case, he shrank from court
ing a decision, which he feared must go in favour
of his enemies, and would weaken his hold on the
Federal power. In spite, therefore, of having the
support of Packard, the countenance of Pinch, the
salary of a Governor, and an official residence in
the State House, William P. Kellogg found his
situation grow more desperate every passing day.

22 WHITE CONQUEST.

New Orleans is Louisiana, very much as Paris is
France. When New Orleans suffers, Louisiana
suffers ; when New Orleans recovers, Louisiana re
covers. Now, under Kellogg and his reign of
anarchy, New Orleans was bankrupt in public credit
as well as in private means.

A mixed executive of Negroes and strangers
ruled the city and jobbed the public lands — a
Bump Chamber, in which the Negroes had a large
majority, pocketing their fees, and voting bills which
have no legal force. A band of Negroes, officered
by aliens, ruled the streets and quays. Black clubs
were multiplied, with secret signs and passwords.
While a dollar lay in the Treasury, these aliens
helped themselves and their adherents. Offices were
sold, State bonds were hocussed, and a solvent
city was made responsible for an impoverished
State. Foreign creditors were defrauded, and the
citizens suffered in repute. All branches of the
shipping trade declined. Merchants and brokers
left their magazines empty on the quays, and the
market value of shops in fashionable quarters fell
below their former annual rent. Imports almost
ceased. Taxes increased so rapidly that owners

WHITE REACTION. 23

of good houses handed their tenements over to
the State. All salaries, except the eighteen dollars
paid each week to Kellogg's Negro senators, were
in arrear. Teachers and professors went unpaid.
Colleges and schools were closed. The river com
panies, unable to get their dues, stinted the
supplies of water. Eich and poor were equally
distressed. Some nights the streets were dark, the
gasmen having stopped the mains. The streets of
New Orleans are never safe at night, but in the
darkness of that reign of anarchy, every evil thing
came forth. Policemen levied black-mail on every
shop. These servants of the public carried arms,
and men with arms will never starve. Food rose
in price. Fish grew scarce and mutton dear. The
prisons and asylums were neglected, and their in
mates, like those of Naples and Seville, were left to
rot in filth and rags. Levees were broken through ;
and fertile fields lay under water. Weeds and
mosses sprang up rich and rank. The cotton fields
seemed wasting into jungle, the ramparts crumbling
into the river, and streets and gardens rotting in
a physical and moral blight.

Proud and beautiful New Orleans ! Euined in

24 WHITE CONQUEST.

her trade, her credit, and her hope, the city rose
in her despair and put the question to herself —
Shall the White family perish on the Gulf of
Mexico ?

Her answer was emphatic. A reaction instantly
set in — a reaction in the sense of setting the question
of race above that of party — the Eepublic above the
Eepublicans.

In clubs, in drawing-rooms, in magazines and
stores, a White sentiment began to show. This move
ment was directed less against the coloured people than
against the strangers and scalawags, who managed
the coloured people for party purposes. A league
was understood ; a White League, in opposition to
the Black League ; but the members held no meet
ings, named no committees, elected no chiefs. It
was a sentiment rather than a society; but the
European genius is organic ; and the European
sentiment was ready to take an active shape/

These leaguers, say they, are not a party but
a people, and the object of their union is to save
the White race. Yet, as nearly every white man in
New Orleans has been a soldier, the leaguers are

WHITE REACTION. 25

an army, ready, on two hours' notice, to fall in —
on twelve hours' notice, to take the field.

This league gave confidence to those White
citizens who wished to end the reign of anarchy, by
driving Kellogg as a stranger from New Orleans,
by sending Antoine, the Negro porter, back to his
stand in the Custom House, and by installing General
McEnery and General Penn in office, as the Governor
and Lieutenant-governor of their choice.

Election-day was coming on, when a new set
of local legislators must be chosen. The citizens
wished to have as free and fair elections as were
possible with the register drawn up by the scala
wags and Black leaguers ; but in order to have a free
and fair election, it was necessary for the strangers
to retire. Eepublican Senators in Washington agreed
with Conservative Senators in New Orleans that
Kellogg was not the lawful Governor of Louis
iana. But how were the White citizens to use such
pressure as would cause him to withdraw ?

Besides the Federal troops, Kellogg had con
siderable forces at his back ; the city police, a
Negro regiment, under General Badger; and the

26 WHITE CONQUEST.

State militia, mainly a Negro army, under General
Longstreet. Badger was a carpet-bagger, sure to
stand by Kellogg while his fortunes were upheld
by President Grant. Longstreet, the famous soldier,
was uncertain. In a question of disputed powers,
where neither party had the sanction of Congress,
Longstreet might see his duty in standing aside,
while the voters who had chosen McEnery and
Penn settled with the voters who had chosen Kel
logg and Antoine. Might . . . but who could tell ?
At eleven o'clock on Monday morning. Septem
ber 14, 1874, a mass meeting of citizens was held
in Canal Street. Standing by the great statue of
Henry Clay, Marr, as chairman of the meeting, put
this question to the citizens — Whether they would
endure the reign of anarchy any longer ? They
replied by shouts that they preferred the tyranny
under which they had groaned before the Eecon-
struction Act. A soldier, though a despot, was
a man of discipline. He kept the streets in order,
and the lobbies of the State House pure. A ruler
like Hancock was a blessing compared to a ruler
like Kellogg. Under a Federal soldier there would
be no pretence of freedom, civil order, and repub-

WHITE REACTION. 27

Jican institutions. The tyranny would be undis
guised, and Louisiana governed like the Duchy of
Warsaw. Yet the citizens preferred a man of iron
to a carpet-bagger ; anything being better than ad
venturers having no other hold on the country than
the support of an alien soldiery and a Negro mob.

A resolution was carried that five citizens should
proceed to the State House, in St. Louis Street, and
in the name of a free and sovereign people, request
William P. Kellogg, as a stranger in their city, to
retire.

Kellogg shut himself in his apartments, with
his Negro guard, but sent out Billings and an
officer of his staff to parley with his visitors. ' You
ask the Governor to retire ! ' said Billings, ' He
refuses to hear a message from a body of armed
men, accompanied by a menace.'

The crowd in Canal Street were not armed,
as Kellogg and Billings knew. An hour later,
Packard telegraphed to Attorney-general Williams :

' The people assembled at the meeting were
generally unarmed.'

This talk about armed men was meant for Wash
ington and New York, not for New Orleans.

28 WHITE CONQUEST.

' Go home, gentlemen,' said Marr. ' Provide
yourselves with rations and blankets, and assemble
at two o'clock, when arms and leaders will be
ready.'

Packard, feeling uneasy about the mass meeting,

had telegraphed to Jackson, in Mississippi, for troops,
and early in the day a company had arrived in New
Orleans. These troops were at the Custom House.
He now sent messages to Holly Springs, and was
informed by wire that four additional companies
were coming to his aid. He chuckled in his sleeve.
' There is little doubt of a conflict to-night,' he
joyfully telegraphed to Washington. ' I have a
company of United States troops guarding the
Custom House. Four companies are en route from
Holly Springs. The local authorities have several
hundred men under arms at the State House and
arsenals.'

When Marr went away, Kellogg sent for General
Badger and arranged with him the details of an
attack on the White citizens. The police, under
Badger's orders, were a regiment, drilled and armed
like our Irish constabulary, and furnished with a
park of guns. This force is raised and paid by the

WHITE REACTION. 29

city, and in a reign of order is commanded by the
mayor ; but the intruders have usurped the mayor's
authority, driven White men out of the service, and
filled up the ranks with tall and burly Negroes. In
the hands of Badger this police is nothing but a black
praetorian guard.

As Longstreet's presence at the State House
covered Kellogg, Badger occupied Canal Street, a
strong position, sweeping the main thoroughfares,
connecting the quays with the lake, and dividing
the French quarter, in which St. Louis Street
lies, from the English quarter, in which the White
citizens mostly live. He had three guns in position,
one Gatling and two Napoleons, and two hundred
of his Black Regiment stood under arms round the
statue of Henry Clay.

By twos and threes the unarmed citizens passed
Canal Street towards the State House, and at two
p'clock seventeen hundred of these unarmed .citizens
occupied the sidewalks of Poydrass Street and the
adjacent avenues

'Fall in!'

The citizens seemed to know their duties. Com
panies and battalions were formed. Rifles, hastily

3o WHITE CONQUEST.

landed from a steamer, were distributed, and General
Ogden, an old campaigner, took the chief com
mand.

The enemies whom General Ogden might have
to face were three : first, General Badger and the
metropolitan police ; second, General Longstreet and
the State militia ; third, General Emory and the
Federal troops. His theory was that neither Long-
street nor Emory would feel himself justified in
meddling with the purely local question as to
whether Kellogg or McEnery had a true majority
of votes. Longstreet was a Southern man, and
Emory would hardly go against the vote of Congress.
Should he be left to deal with Badger and his Negro
regiment, Ogden supposed that fifteen or twenty
minutes would suffice to settle the affair.

At half-past two Badger began to move his forces
towards St. Louis Street. Trailing the three big guns,
his heads of column hove in sight, with Badger riding
gallantly in front, and some of his leading company
yelling and discharging their pieces as they came
along.

' Fire ! ' cried Ogden. The citizens fired, and
Badger dropt from his horse — supposed to be killed.

WHITE REACTION. 31

' Charge ! ' cried Ogden. The citizens charged, and
the Negroes, surprised by bayonets, broke and fled.

Captain Angel led his company against the
Gatling gun. Dropping their arms in scorn, the
citizens ran at the gun, cuffed and kicked the Negro
gunners, chasing them in and out of yards and
stores, until the tag-rag reached the Custom House,
and found a refuge under the Federal flag. Hardly
one of the Negroes stood to fight. One Negro
general crept into an undertaker's shed. ' Get out,'
shouted the little French coffin-maker, ' zey will
follow you and murder me ! ' The Negro stripped
himself of lace and feathers. ' God's sake, massa, let
me hide ! ' A citizen entered ; no brigadier-general
to be seen : nothing but a Negro in a sack, mopping
the mire from a hearse. The citizen looked round,
gave the Negro a kick, and went out laughing.

Neither General Longstreet nor General Emory
interfered. At five o'clock the four companies ar
rived from Holly Springs, but were not placed
by Emory at Packard's disposal. Longstreet held
the State House, which was not attacked. By six
o'clock the firing was over, and the victorious citizens
grounded arms in presence of the Federal troops.

32 WHITE CONQUEST.

Of Badger's force, thirty were killed and
thirty wounded; of Ogden's force, twelve were
killed and thirteen wounded. Guns, arms, and
stores were captured, and a hundred prison
ers remained in Ogden's hands. At dusk the
City Hall, with the whole town, except the State
House and Custom House, were in possession of
the citizens. At midnight, Kellogg stole away
from his apartments in the State House, and
sought a refuge in the Customs under the United
States flag. Next morning Longstreet surrendered
the State House, which was at once occupied by
General Penn. Then peace returned. Shops were
opened and cars began to ply. The White move
ment was complete,

But such a change in New Orleans was fatal to
the policy of President Grant. Election-day was
nigh ; and if Governor McEnery sat in the State
House of New Orleans, the Eepublican ticket would
be lost in Louisiana. Kellogg assured the President
that, with prompt support, the vote might yet be saved
to the Republicans.

Grant ordered Emory to crush the victorious
citizens and restore the beaten scalawags to power.

WHITE REACTION. 33

The vote took place under a state of feeling
bordering on the phrenzy of civil war. Again each
party claimed the victory. The one thing certain
was, that Kellogg had not carried the State for
Grant. Kellogg had promised his patron five
votes out of the six possessed by Louisiana. Of the
six votes only two were won for Grant.

In the State Legislature, the elections for which
were held at the same time as the elections for Con
gress, the Conservatives claim to have gained a
small but sure majority of votes. So far as the
White reaction turned on votes, this White reaction
was secure.

One chance, and only one, remained for Kellogg
and his patrons : such an intervention of the Federal
troops as might prevent the Conservative members
from taking their seats. It was a daring, nay, a
desperate policy ; but the beaten scalawags are
desperate men.

To carry out such a project required a sterner
officer than General Emory, and General Sheridan
has been sent to New Orleans.

VOL. II.

34 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE IV.
GENERAL SHERIDAN.

SOON after our arrival at the St. Charles Hotel,
in New Orleans, General Sheridan leaves a card,
and two hours later we pay the young and bril
liant Irish soldier a visit in his quarters : ' Head
quarters of the Military Division of the Missouri.'
Like ourselves, General Sheridan and his staff are
lodged in the hotel.

Our talk is general and on public matters;
about the Plains of Kansas, where we saw In
dian scares in 1866 ; about the disturbed districts
in Texas, which we have just left ; about our several
travels and adventures since the war. As usual.
General Sheridan is frank and friendly, laughing
merrily at the fears which people express of him,
and showing me the nature and extent of his
commission in the South.

For military purposes, America is divided into

GENERAL SHERIDAN. 3$

four great sections : a Division of the Pacific, a Di
vision of the Atlantic, a Division of the Missouri, and
a Division of the South. Four officers of eminence
hold these great commands : Major-general Schole-
field ruling the Pacific, from San Francisco ; Major-
general Hancock the Atlantic, from New York ;
Lieutenant-general Sheridan the Missouri, from
Chicago ; and Major-general McDowell the South,
from Louisville. General Sherman, the Commander-
in-Chief, is stationed at St. Louis.

Each military division consists of two or more
departments. The division of Major-general
McDowell, of which New Orleans forms a part, con
sists of two departments : — a Department of the-
South, and a Department of the Gulf. That of the
South comprises seven States : Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
and Florida, except the forts in Pensacola Bay, from
Fort Jefferson to Key West. The head-quarters are
at Louisville, where General McDowell resides.
That of the Gulf comprises three States : Louis
iana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, with all the mili
tary stations in the Gulf of Mexico, from Fort
Jefferson to Key West, except the forts in Mobile

D 2

36 WHITE CONQUEST.

Bay. The head-quarters are at New Orleans, where
General Emory commands, under the orders of his
superior officer, General McDowell.

General Sheridan's Division of the Missouri is of
greater extent, and, in a military sense, of vaster
importance, since it runs from the British frontier
to the Mexican frontier, and cuts off every line of
intercourse between the Eastern and Western States.
This great division consists of four departments,
called Dakota, Platte, Missouri, and Texas. The
Department of Dakota comprises the State of Min
nesota, with the Territories of Dakota and Mon
tana ; that of Platte, the States of Iowa and
Nebraska, with the Territories of Utah and Wyo
ming ; that of Missouri, the ' States of Kansas,
Colorado, Illinois, and Missouri, with the Territory
of New Mexico and the district of Camp Supply ;
that of Texas, the State of Texas, and the Territories
of the Indian Nations, with the exception of Camp
Supply. These regions form the ordinary province
over which General Sheridan rules, but on coming
to New Orleans he has brought with him a secret
power to add, at his discretion, either the whole or
any part of General McDowell's division to his own.

GENERAL SHERIDAN. 37

What sort of a man is lie who has the charge
of eight free States and six great Territories, and
who may at any moment on his own mere motion,
and without consulting a single native, add ten more
States to his overgrown command ? As a companion
by the way, I like General Sheridan, and if I paint
him somewhat darkly it is because the facts of history
leave me no choice of tints. Nature has not drawn
Philip Sheridan in sepia, nor need one pay him the
poor compliment of softening a grand and sombre
figure. To feel the situation you must see the man.

A soldier, short in stature, squat in form, and
plain of face, with head of bullet-shape, and eyes
lit up with sullen fire, is 'Little Phil,' the wild
Irish devil, who has fought his way to one of the
highest seats within a soldier's reach. Five names
emerge from the confusion of the war, and that of
Sheridan is one of these five. If Lee and Jackson
leave a brighter record, who among the Northern
men, excepting Grant and Sherman, have a greater
name than Sheridan ? These captains are immortals,
and Sheridan .is youngest of the five. Alert as
Mosby, he is hot as Hood and cool as Bragg. Think
of poor Early in his grasp ! Few strokes of war

38 WHITE CONQUEST.

excel the charge by which lie shook, shattered,
and destroyed the enemies who had burnt Chambers-
burg and menaced Washington. lie reaps a rich
reward. America has only one Lieutenant-general,
and Philip Sheridan is that one.

Sheridan has seen hard service, in a region
where the nicer feelings have no field ; for he has
spent six years among the Cheyemes and Sioux,
learning their dialects and mixing in their feuds.
It is a saying in the camp that Little Phil is one-
half Irish savage, the other half Indian savage. If
a merciless deed has to be done, everyone expects
Sheridan to do it. When a cruel need of war
induced General Grant to order the Shenandoah
Valley to be burnt, the torch was placed in Sheri
dan's hands. ' The whole country, from the Blue
Eidge to the North Mountain, has been made
untenable ! ' was his brief report ; and never since
the French generals, under advice of Louvois,
ravaged the Palatinate, have eyes of man beheld a
wreck so awful as that of the beautiful Virginian
dale. When the Government wished to make
example of an Indian tribe, Sheridan was sent into
the Plains. The Piegans were selected for a sacrifice ;

GENERAL SHERIDAN. 39

and the work of slaughter was so sudden and so
thorough, that as long as Indian bards and seers
recite the legends of their tribes no Red man or
woman will forget the name of Sheridan and the
horrors of that Piegan war.

Thus it happens that General Sheridan's arrival
at New Orleans, in a time of much disorder, rouses
the great city like an alarm of fire.

General Sheridan was in Chicago, busy with the
duties of his post, and idling through the pleasures of
courtship, and the festivities of Christmas, when a
letter reached him from General Belknap, Secretary
of War, marked ' confidential,' which upset all his
arrangements for balls and dinners. The letter
ran : —

CONFIDENTIAL. War Department, Dec. 24, 1874.

6 General : The President sent for me this morn
ing, and desires me to say to you that he wishes you
to visit the States of Louisiana and Mississippi, and
especially New Orleans and Vicksburg. . . . Inclosed
herewith is an order authorizing you to assume com
mand of the Military Division of the South, or any
portion of that division, should you see proper to
do so. ... You can, if you desire it, see General

40 WHITE CONQUEST.

McDowell in Louisville, and make known to him,
confidentially, the object of your trip. But this is
not required of you. Communication with him by
you is left entirely to your own judgment. Of
course you can take with you such gentlemen of
your staff as you wish, and it is best that the trip
should appear to be one as much of pleasure as
of business. . . . You can return by Washington,,
and make a verbal report. W. W. BELKXAP.'

Ever ready to obey orders, Sheridan telegraphed
to Washington : ' Your letter arrived — all right.'

A party of ladies and officers, including a
young lady who was the object of General Sheri
dan's courtship, was made up for this ' pleasure trip/
and a note to the Chicago journals told the world
that General Sheridan, having got leave of absence,
was about to spend his winter holidays in Cuba. It
was understood to be his courting trip, to end on
his return in bridal cakes and marriage bells.

Lying on the road from Chicago to Cuba, New
Orleans might be reached without exciting much
suspicion and distrust. The presence of ladies,
among them a damsel to whom Sheridan was said
to be vowed, would give his journey a holiday and

GENERAL SHERIDAN. 41

festive air. The main difficulty lay with those great
officers whose functions Sheridan was about to seize.
The mission was unusual, the method of it irregular.
If Emory is not strong enough for his place, a firmer
hand might be sent down, without calling Philip
Sheridan from the shores of Lake Michigan. If
unity of command is needed, General McDowell
is the officer in charge of the South. If the situa
tion is thought so serious that a higher officer than
McDowell should be on the spot, General Sherman
is that higher officer.

It is no great secret that General Sherman notes
these doings of Belknap and the War Office with
alarm. Sherman has no taint of Csesarism. A
patriot first, a soldier afterwards, he values military
prowess mainly as the shield of liberty and safe
guard of the Commonwealth. Unable to support a
personal policy, even by his silence, he has broken
with the presidents, secretaries, and adjutants, and
shifted his head-quarters from Washington to St.
Louis, where he stands apart, an American Achilles,
disgusted by the passing phase of public affairs.
Sherman is too great a man to slight ; and Belknap,
on receiving Sheridan's answer, sent a confidential

42 WHITE CONQUEST.

letter to St. Louis, explaining Sheridan's mission to
the South. Of this letter General Sherman simply
acknowledged the receipt.

General McDowell's case was still more delicate.
No officer likes to be set aside, especially by a
secret order, and without a hearing. Belknap
threw his burthen on to Sheridan's back, by that
clause in his letter which instructed Sheridan to see
General McDowell in Louisville, and make known to
him, confidentially, the object of his trip, if he saw
fit to do so.

Sheridan preferred to keep McDowell in the
dark.

The party of ladies and officers started from Chi
cago, and in five days they were in New Orleans,
lounging about Canal Street, reading the proclama
tions of King Carnival, and asking dreamily when
the next steamer sails for Cuba !

CHAPTEE V.

THE STATE HOUSE.

SUNDAY, January 3, is a busy day in St. Louis Street,
the next clay being marked, on both sides, as the
date on which the great conflict is to be carried
from the streets into the legislative halls, Monday
is to either make or mar the scalawag government
in New Orleans.

Out of one hundred and eleven members recently
elected to the lower house, fifty- eight are called
Conservative, fifty-three Eepublican ; giving the
Conservatives not only a legal quorum but a work
ing majority of five members. All these fifty-eight
Conservatives are White. If such a house should
meet the Kelloggites are lost.

A first battle has been fought in the Bediming
Board — a body of five assessors, who, according to
statute, should be chosen from both parties, so as
to represent all the great shades of opinion. Kel-

44 WHITE CONQUEST.

logg named this board, and in open violation of
the law, selected five Republicans. By law the
sittings should be held in public, so that every word
should be open and beyond suspicion. By Kellogg's
order, all the most serious business has been done
in secret. Longstreet retired from the board. An
easy-going Conservative was named in place of
Longstreet; but on finding his colleagues bent on
violating the law this easy-going Conservative pro
tested and retired. His resignation leaves the rump
incapable of acting, since by law the board consists ot
five members. But the rump cares nothing about legal
forms. Two thousand Federal soldiers occupy the
posts and arsenals — why should they conform to law ?

In Louisiana, the votes are counted many times.
The local ballots are first sent to the Supervisors of
Eegistration, who count them up and forward them
to the Commissioners of Elections. They undergo
three scrutinies, so to speak, before they reach the
Eeturning Board. When laid before these party
experts the ballotting papers showed these broad
results :

Seventy Conservative members.

Forty-one Republican members.

THE STATE HOUSE. 45

The Conservatives had a majority of twenty-nine ;
but Kellogg's illegal Eeturning Board has continued
to sweep away this Conservative majority of twenty-
nine. The figures, as manipulated by the rump of
four members, are :

Fifty-three Eepublicans.

Fifty-three Conservatives.

Five cases referred.

One hit is scored by Kellogg. If pretexts can
be found for shutting out the five members, four of
whom are Conservatives, neither side will have a
legal quorum, and the Conservatives will not be
able to carry a party vote. In free popular
assemblies the candidates usually sit and vote until
their cases have been heard ; but Kellogg thinks that
rules which govern free assemblies everywhere else
may be defied in New Orleans. If these five mem
bers take their seats on the opening day, the Con
servatives will have a legal quorum of fifty-six, and
a sure majority of three, a probable majority of five.
What is to prevent that sure Conservative majority
from indicting and deposing Kellogg, as Governor
Warmotli was indicted and deposed ?

A House in which neither party counts a

46 WHITE CONQUEST.

quorum is a body open to ' arrangements.' Kellogg
believes that some of the voters may be bought.
Already, there are stories told of his having secured
one vote. He only needs two others to make his
quorum. He has every reason to bid brisk, for he
is bound to either keep & show of legal order or
confess his failure and retire. His faction in the
country is getting sick of him — a man who brings
them no substantial gain, and lays them open to
reproach of Cassarism. To Kellogg's last appeal for
help, the President wired, impatiently : ' It is ex
ceedingly unpalatable to use troops in anticipation of
danger ; let the State authorities be right, and then
proceed with their duties.' Other critics, also of his
own party, showr as much impatience as the President.
Colonel Morrow, a Republican officer, is travelling
through the country, and reporting on affairs to
General Sherman. Morrow reports, according to
his observation j that the South is loyal to the
Union, but opposed to scalawags and carpet-baggers.
The Republican majority in Congress, scared by the
November elections, have appointed a committee to
visit New Orleans and look into the state of things.
Three members of this committee, Foster of Ohio,

THE STATE HOUSE. 47

a Eepublican, Phelps of New Jersey, a Eepublican,
and Potter of New York, a Democrat, are in the city
taking evidence, and the two Republicans hardly
hide their agreement with the Democrat, that the
attempt to govern through the aid of Federal
soldiery is the cause of all the disorder seen about
the Gulf. With critics so unfriendly to disarm, it is
Kellogg's policy to seek some safe and legal
ground ; but where in Louisiana can intruders like
Kellogg find that safe and legal ground ?

McEnery is not only stronger in votes but
in repute and training. Many of his adherents,
such as Penn, his Lieutenant-governor, and Wiltz,
his candidate for Speaker, are familiar with public
business and the rules of public life. Wealth, cul
ture, eloquence are on their side. In Kellogg's
group there is hardly a man of name. Among
them may be good Eepublicans, men who heartily
believe there is no way of saving Black, equality
except by crushing White freedom ; but these Ee
publicans have no voice in the clubs and drawing-
rooms where White men meet and White women
reign. They stand apart, committed by their here
sies to a social ban.

43 WHITE CONQUEST.

In Kellogg's list of fifty-three adherents, twenty-
eight are Negroes. Nearly all these Negroes have
been slaves — labourers in the rice-ground and the
cotton-field. A few can read print, and scratch
their names ; not many can do either ; while only
three or four can express their meaning in decent
English words. Most of them are so poor and
ignorant, so vain and shifty, that Kellogg dares
not trust them in the streets and grog-shops.
New Orleans, a gay and rattling town, is rich in
drinking-bars and gaming hells — places in which
men like Pinchback serve apprenticeships. These
bars and hells have dangerous fascinations for Mose
and Pete, Negroes fresh from the cotton-fields, and
eager to enjoy their freedom in a great metropolis.
Spies bring in news to the State House, that clever
and unscrupulous men are dealing with the Negro
senators. Cousins, the Negro member for St. Tam
many, is said to have been kidnapped in the street
and carried to a distant part. His vote is lost — a
set-off to the one false Conservative. Other Negroes
are said to be spending their dollars and getting
drunk.

Kellogg perceives that he must act. -

TJfE STATE HOUSE. 49

Sending out for carpenters and innkeepers, he
orders them to convert the State House into a
fortress and hotel. A vast and handsome edifice,
standing at the angle of St. Louis Street and Eoyal
Street, this State House was originally built for an
hotel, and called, after the royal founder of Louis
iana, the Hotel St. Louis. Eue Eoyale and Kue
St. Louis cut and cross the old French quarter.
This side of New Orleans is quaint with balco
nies, green shutters, high gateways, and inner
yards, tricked out with squirts of water and pots of
oleander, doing duty for fountains and gardens ; a
decrepit and deserted corner of the town, from
which the tides of life and trade have long since ebbed
away. The stench reminds you of Dieppe, the domi
noes and billiards of Bayonne. Yet this French quar
ter used to be a fashionable lounge, where ladies
flirted, duellists fought, and senators ruled. The
Eue St. Louis was an afternoon drive for belles and
beaux, where sparkling Creoles ruined their admirers
with a smile ; but since that period fashions have
changed, and everyone now lodges at the Hotel St.
Charles. The once fashionable hotel has sunk into a
State capital ; one wing of the old hostelry being

VOL. II. E

50 WHITE CONQUEST.

turned into an executive office, and a deserted dining-
room into a legislative hall.

By Kellogg's orders, planks are nailed across
the doors and windows, and secured by iron stan
chions. Barricades are thrown across St Louis Street,
and the main entrance of the hotel is closed. One
door — a back door in Eoyal Street — is left open.
Inside and out the State House is strengthened to
resist assault. Forty Negro police, armed with clubs
and six-shooters, take position in the hall, while
others of their company occupy the stairs and cor
ridors. Eifles are stacked against the wall ; and
General Campbell, a Southern fire-eater, now turned
scalawag, is charged with the defence. Provisions,
reckoned for a siege of twenty days, are brought
into the yard : canned fruits, dried fish and flesh,
whisky, tobacco, and pale ale. A bar is opened,
and spittoons are placed. A hundred mattresses
are fetched from the barracks and strewn about
the halls and passages. Supper is cooked, and boxes
of cigars displayed. When everything is ready,
Kellogg sends his scouts into the streets to bid
Negro members come in, enjoy a smoke and
drink, and sleep in Government House, in readiness
for the morrow's work.

THE STATE HOUSE. 51

A hundred senators, loafers, and police, five in
every six of whom are coloured persons, spend the
Sunday night at Kellogg's bar, drinking whisky
straight and hiccuping coniic songs.

Kellogg's officers stand ready at any moment of
the night to call the roll and organise the house, if
accident should raise the members present to a
legal quorum of fifty-six. It is a desperate game,
but desperate men are seldom wise. If they can
snap a vote, and carry their own Speaker, Clerk,
and Serjeant, they may find some means of braving
a small majority of Conservative voters. William
Vigers, clerk of the late Chamber and candidate
for the next, is waiting in Kellogg's anteroom, with
his official roll. Michael Halm, a lawyer, whom the
Eepublican party have pricked for Speaker, sits in
Kellogg's cabinet. The scalawags distrust Michael
Hahn, on account of his legal scruples, but their
party is too poor in law to overlook his claim. Who
else is fit to stand against Louis A. Wiltz ? Some
members want to have a Negro in the chair. Some
others, heated by spiced liquors, say they ought to
pull down Kellogg and set up Pinch. ' Ole Pinch is
some Nig,' cries one of his tipsy partisans. ' Guess

E2

52 WHITE CONQUEST.

dat true,' hiccups his no less tipsy comrade, ' Ole
Pinch some Nig. Bravo Pinch ! '

Pinchback is with Kellogg, Hahn, and Campbell,
waiting in the cabinet for a chance. If six or
seven Conservatives, led by curiosity, should happen
to drop in, a legal quorum would be present, and
the roll might be called, Hahn voted to the chair,
and Vigers appointed Clerk.

Some trimmers of the Warmoth school are
noticed slipping in and out — only, as they say, to
see the fun arid get a drink. Pinch keeps an eye
on these stragglers. Once he counts fifty-five
members round the bar. He calls a caucus ; and
debates the matter, but let him try his most, Pinch
cannot convert a minority of fifty-five into a legal
quorum of fifty-six.

More serious efforts must be made. A hundred
of the Black militia are marched into the House,
and placed under Campbell's orders. Help is asked
from the Federal officers, and in spite of the Presi
dent's late rebuff this help is given, not only by the
army, but the fleet. General Emory sleeps at the
Custom House, where his field-guns are supported
by a troop of horse. The Commodore lays his ships

THE STATE HOUSE. 53

so as to rake the wharf and sweep Canal Street.
A body of Marines is held in readiness to land.
General De Trobriand, Emory's second in com
mand, receives orders to proceed at dawn to Eoyal
Street.

Sheridan remains at his hotel. Conservative
scouts who visit the Eotunda, to observe his motions,
find him as usual, dawdling about, puffing his cigar,
and laughing with the members of his staff, as
though he had no more concern with what is
passing at the State House and the arsenals than
any other guest in the hotel. Carnival-day is nigh.
King Carnival is announced as coming ; and the
comic writers — a conspicuous body in New Orleans —
are hinting that c King Philip ' is that prince in mas
querade. Sheridan only laughs and smokes.

54 WHITE CONQUEST

CHAPTEE VI.

INVASION !

AT break of clay, while the Negro senators, yawning
on their fever-moss, are yelling for more cocktails,
Eoyal Street is being filled with soldiery, who pile
arms in the roadway, and occupy the side-walks.
The scene looms black. Already everyone seems
to be awake and in the streets. The paths are
thronged with citizens as well as soldiers, and
ominous sarcasms pass along the line. Marines are
marching from the quays, cavalry are prancing
near the Custom House. Two Gatling guns are
trained on the Levee, and a brass Napoleon guards
the State House. Emory, holding the chief com
mand, remains at the Arsenal, ready to advance
on any point; and his lieutenant, De Trobriand,
having massed his troops in St. Louis Street, with
their right resting on the closed gates, their left
extending towards the river, rides with a part of
his brigade into Eoyal Street. Two thousand Federal
troops are under arms.

INVASION! 55

Aii orderly rides in now and then, but Sheridan
remains at his hotel — s'ill known as Head- quarters
of the Missouri, not as Head-quarters of the Gulf.

No one is allowed to enter St. Louis Street
except the orderlies, nor is anyone allowed to pass
the sentries in Eoyal Street, except reporters for the
press, officers on duty, and members of the House
provided with certificates. Potter, of the congres
sional sub-committee, presents his card, and is re
fused admission to the State House. McEnery and
Wiltz, anxious to have witnesses of the scene, in
vite Foster and Phelps, as well as Potter, to attend
the opening of the assembly. The three members
come together, but the sentries push them back.
As chairman of the sub-committee, Foster sends
for a superior officer, who, after an explanation,
passes them on, but firmly declines to pass the
gentlemen in their train.

A little before twelve o'clock, the Conservatives
march down Eoyal Street in a body, when the
officer on duty asks to see their papers. Four of
their number, having no certificates, are pushed
aside, until their cases have been heard. The others
pass through corridors lined with soldiery, and
anterooms reeking with the stench of cheap cigars

56 WHITE CONQUEST.

Squads of police, with bludgeons and revolvers,
guard the doorways, and refuse to quit the precincts
of the Chamber. General Campbell, they allege,
has marched them to their posts, and till that officer
orders them away they will remain. Foster and
Phelps observe these facts and note these words.

To Wiltz it is now apparent that if stratagem
fail, the scalawags are prepared to call in force,
and to McEnery it is no less evident that the Federal
officers are ready to obey that call. One hasty word,
one heedless step, may lead to a collision. ' Let us
be firm and quick,' the citizens whisper to each
other ; ' most of all, let us abide within the law.'

At twelve o'clock Yigers begins to read the
roll, when fifty-two Republicans and fifty Conser
vatives answer to their names.

' A hundred and two members and a legal
quorum are present,' shouts Yigers through the
rising din of Negro voices.

' I move,' says Billieu, the Conservative member
for La Farouche, ' that the Hon. Louis A. Wiltz, late
Mayor of New Orleans, take the chair.'

Tigers, waiting for some one to propose Michael
Hahn, has the impertinence to say he will not put

INVASION J 57

Billieu's motion. Vigers is Clerk — Clerk of the last
Chamber — and his function is to read the roll. By
courtesy an officer in his situation is allowed to put
the first motion for naming a chairman ; but on
his neglect to do so any member of the Chamber
has the right, according to American usage, not
only in New Orleans, but in Washington, to put
the motion, and take a show of hands. Seeing
Yigers hesitate, a member rises, puts the motion
made by Billieu, takes a show of hands, and declares
the proposal carried. Taking the gavel from Vigers's
hands, Louis A. Wiltz moves at once into the chair,
and while the Xegroes are staring and shouting, he
calls the House to order, and announces from the
chair that business may now begin.

A member rises to propose that the deferred
returns be certified, and that the five members, who
are waiting in the streets, be admitted to their seats.
Wiltz puts this motion, which is carried by a large
majority of votes, many of the Negroes having left
the room in order to seek advice from the party
wire-pullers sitting in Kellogg's cabinet. When the
five gentlemen come in, the White voting strength
amounts to fifty-four votes.

$8 WHITE CONQUEST.

Neither party has a legal quorum ; and the
Bepublicans, finding they have lost their small
majority, begin to slip away from their seats. But
the Conservatives, accustomed to such dodges, in
tercept them before a count-out can be tried. A
member proposes the Hon. Louis A. Wiltz as
Speaker ; a second member proposes the Hon.
Michael Hahn. Fifty-eight members are present
in the House. Fifty-five cast their votes for Wiltz,
who is declared elected, in the midst of frantic
cheers.

Judge Houston, who is standing by his chair,
administers the usual oath of loyalty to the law and
constitution of Louisiana. Wiltz calls the House,
and swears the members who remain. Though
some have slipped away there is a legal quorum.
Hahn, uncertain what to do, remains, and takes the
oath from Wiltz. Captain Floyd is voted Serjeant,
and Mr. Trezevant nominated Clerk. The House is
now composed. Wiltz, as Speaker, invites General
De Trobriand to remove the police, who occupy
doors and passages, and General De Trobriand obeys
his call. The Conservative Chamber, organised
under Wiltz, appears to be recognised by the Federal

INVASION! 59

troops. Are the scalawags beaten, and the citizens
masters of the city ? Not yet.

Sitting in his room, surrounded by officers, civil
and military, Kellogg grows excited and alarmed,
as news come in from the adjoining chamber. Spite
of liis drinking-bars and sleeping-mats, the Con
servatives have beaten him in his own house and at
his own game. How is he to hold his own?
"With a Conservative Speaker, backed by Conserva
tive Clerk and Serjeant, the house is in his enemy's
power. Nothing but Federal bayonets can undo
his morning's work.

Are Federal bayonets still at his disposal ? Wiltz
calls for help, and they obey that call. Will they
obey his call ? He puts them to the test by sending
a written order for General De Trobriand to invade
the Legislature, and expel the four members who
have been admitted to their seats !

De Trobriand refers this message to General
Emory. Whether Emory seeks advice of Sheridan
is uncertain ; but a long delay takes place ; and
Wiltz is carrying on his business, when De Tro
briand, having received his orders, clanks into the
Chamber, and asks to have the c intruders ' pointed

60 WHITE CONQUEST.

out. Wiltz answers that he knows of no intruders-
all the gentlemen present are members of that House,
and the person of every member of an American
legislature is inviolate.

' I am a soldier, only second in command, and
must obey my orders,' urges De Trobriand.
' General Emory has ordered me to follow the
instructions of Governor Kellogg.'

' I have to state to you in formal words,' replies
the Speaker, ' that this House, duly elected, has
organised itself, by electing me as Speaker, Captain
Floyd as Serjeant, and Mr. Trezevant as Clerk.
After organization, we have seated five members,
whose cases are referred to us by the Eeturning
Board. Will you eject these men ? '

' My duty as an officer leaves me no choice.'

Wiltz calls on every member to rise with him
in protest. All the Conservatives rise, put out
their hands, and call on heaven to witness their
appeal. The Negroes, fearing that a fight is coming
on, surge over the seats and benches, crouch be
hind desks, press into corridors, and shut them
selves up in closets.

' Point them out ! ' cries De Trobriand to Yigers.

INVASION! 61

' Vigers has no authority in this Chamber,'
interposes Wiltz. ' For him to meddle in the
public business of this assembly is an outrage.
Vigers was Clerk of the former House ; Trezevant
is now our Clerk.'

' Call the roll ! ' roars De Trobriand, on which
Vigers gets up, and begins to read.

. ' Conservative members will not answer to their
names,' says the Speaker, and no Conservative
answers to his name.

General Campbell now comes in, to assist Vigers
in searching the benches. Troops are also called.
John O'Quin, member for Aroyelles, is pointed out
as one of the four Conservatives. ' Eemove him ! '
shouts De Trobriand. O'Quin appeals to his Speaker
for protection. ' We submit to nothing but force,'
says this dignitary to the military officer. De Tro
briand calls in men in full array, with loaded rifles and
bayonets fixed. Two of these soldiers drive O'Quin
from his seat. Vaughan, member for Eapides, is
the next victim. Facing De Trobriand and his
armed followers, Vaughan rises and protests : 'In
the name of my constituents, the people of Louis
iana, and as a free-born citizen of the United

62 WHITE CONQUEST.

States, I protest against this outrage/ Turning
to his colleagues, the Conservative gentleman calls
on them to witness the extremity of this outrage on
a free assembly. 'You see, they thrust me out
with bayonets ! '

' Let it be clone ! ' sighs Wiltz, and the indig
nity is done. Eleven more members are in turn
expelled. When Floyd endeavours to obey the
Speaker and protect a member, he is seized and
held in custody by the soldiery. When they have
searched the hall, and turned the last Conservative
member out by violence, Wiltz stands up, and,
with a proud and mournful gesture, calls the Cham
ber to itself, and says :—

; As legal Speaker of the House of Kepresenta-
tives of Louisiana, I have protested against this
invasion of our hall by soldiers of the United States
with drawn bayonets and loaded muskets. We
have seen our brethren seized by force, and torn
from us in spite of their solemn protests. We have
seen a force of soldiers march up the aisles of this
hall of representatives, and we have protested
against this act. In the name of a once free people,
in the name of the once free State of. Louisiana, in

INVASION! 65

the name of our American Union, I enter our
solemn protest against all these abuses of the
military power. My chair of Speaker is surrounded
by troops. Our officers are prisoners in their
hands. Members of the Legislature, I solemnly
believe that Louisiana has ceased to be a sovereign

o

State ; that she has no longer a republican govern
ment ; and I call on every representative of our
country to retire with me before this show of
arms ! '

So saying, Wiltz adjourns the House, and
followed by the whole body of Conservatives, quits
the hall, marches round to St. Louis Street, with half
the city at his back, the citizens cheering him with
lusty English shouts. At number 71 in St. Louis
Street they find new quarters, and after a formal
act of possession, they adjourn the House.

Kellogg is little pleased with his victory. In
place of mending matters by his violence he has-
made them worse. The four Conservative members,
though expelled by force, are not expelled by vote ;
nor can they now be expelled, even in appearance,
for the £s"egro rump falls short of a legal quorum —
fifty-six votes. Wiltz has been sworn as Speaker,.

64 WHITE CONQUEST.

and as Speaker has adjourned the sittings to St.
Louis Street. Looking back on events, Kellogg
sees that he is beaten on every side, and weaker in
strength than ever. Neither he nor his rival has a
legal quorum, and without a legal quorum govern
ment is at an end.

The situation seems to call for a Dictator, and
at nine o'clock in the evening General Sheridan
assumes the chief direction of affairs.

CHAPTEE VII.

BANDITTI

THE camp is pitched, the sword is king !

If President Grant will leave Sheridan as free
to act in Louisiana, as he left him free to act in the
Blue Eidge valleys and the Peigan hunting-grounds,
my dashing neighbour sees his way to square
accounts with such opponents as Wiltz and Ogden,
McEnery and Penn. 'I know these people well,'
he says, ' having lived with them in other times,
when they were wilder than they are to-day. I
have no doubt about my course. The White
League must be trodden down. They are a bad
lot : mere banditti, bent on mischief. In New
Orleans you see the best of them. The men are
pleasant fellows ; even the White Leaguers here
are decent ; but in the country districts — Bossier
and St. Bernard, Natchitoches and Eed Eiver — they
are hell.'

VOL. n. F

66 WHITE CONQUEST.

At ten o'clock in the evening Sheridan wires
these words to Belknap, Secretary of War :

New Orleans : Jan. 4, 1875.

' It is with deep regret that I have to announce
to you the existence in this State of a spirit of
defiance to all lawful authority, and an insecurity of
life which is hardly realized by the General Govern
ment or the country at large. The lives of citizens
have become so jeopardized, that, unless something
is done to give protection to the people, all security
usually afforded by law will be over- ridden. De
fiance to the laws and the murder of individuals
seem to be looked upon by the community here
from a standpoint which gives impunity to all who
choose to in'dulge in either, and the civil government
appears powerless to punish or even arrest. I have
to-night assumed control over the Department of
the Gulf. 'P. H. SHEKIDAN.'

This Department of the Gulf, comprising three
great States — Louisiana, Missisippi, and Arkansas,
with all the forts and stations in the Gulf of Mexico,
except the forts in Mobile Bay — are swept by one
stroke of the pen from McDowell's Division of the
South.

BANDITTI. 67

Next morning brings Sheridan an assurance from
the Adjutant-General, Townsend, that his conduct
is ' approved : ' to which assurance he replies by
sending up his scheme for dealing with the Southern
States ; a document likely to be famous in the story
of American Liberty. No Spanish viceroy in Sicily,
no Muscovite governor of Poland, ever asked im
perial masters for such license as Sheridan asks
of President Grant. His scheme for governing the
South rests on a proposal to have the chief citizens
of these rich and prosperous States denounced by
Government as outlaws and banditti, and delivered
over to his subalterns for punishment !

This startling telegram to Belknap runs :

New Orleans : Jan. 5, 1875.

' I think that the terrorism now existing in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas could be en
tirely removed, and confidence and fair-dealing
established, by the arrest and trial of the ring
leaders of the armed White Leagues. If Congress
would pass a bill declaring them banditti they could
be tried by a military commission. The ring
leaders of this banditti, who murdered men here on
the 14th of September last, and also more recently

F 2

68 WHITE CONQUEST.

at Vicksburg, in Mississippi, should, in justice to
law and order, and the peace and prosperity of this
Southern part of the country, be punished. It is
possible that if the President would issue a procla
mation declaring them banditti, no further action
need be taken, except that which would devolve
upon me.' ' P. H. SHERIDAN.'

If the President will only declare them banditti !
Yes ; in that case you can stand aside and leave
the rest to me !

Is this, men ask, the language of an American
soldier, living in the nineteenth century, writing
of his fellow-citizens? The tone is that of a
Castilian general in Oran, of a Turkish pasha in
Belgrade.

The adjutants and secretaries near the President
seem delighted by such vigour, and in forwarding the
news to public departments they begin to use scant
courtesy and suspicious terms. A copy of Town-
send's first letter to Sheridan, now twelve days old. is
sent to General McDowell, from which this eminent
soldier learns that his command in the Gulf has
been swept away ! In telling General Sherman that

BANDITTI. 69

Sheridan has taken the command in New Orleans,
Townsend describes this officer as having ' annexed '
the Gulf, and adds by way of clincher, ' the
measure is deemed necessary, and is approved.'
General Sherman answers dryly :

St. Louis : Jan. 6, 1875.

' Your telegram of the fifth instant, stating that
General Sheridan has annexed Department of Gulf
to his command, has been received.'

Meanwhile the President is called to study a
remonstrance and appeal from Speaker Wiltz, who
first telegraphs to him a brief account of the
invasion :

6 1 have the honour to inform you that the
House of Eepresentatives of this State was or
ganized to day by the election of myself as Speaker,
fifty-eight members, two more than a quorum,
voting, with a full House present. More than two
hours after the organization, I was informed by the
officer in command of the United States troops in
this city that he had been requested by Governor.
Kellogg to remove certain members of the House
from the State House, and that, under his orders, he
was obliged to comply with the request. I pro-

70 WHITE CONQUEST.

tested against any interference of the United States
with the organization or proceedings of the House ;
but notwithstanding this protest, the officer in
command marched a company of soldiers upon the
floor of the House, and by force removed thirteen
members, who had been legally and constitutionally
seated as such, and who, at time of such forcible
removal, were participating in the proceedings of
the House. In addition to this the military declared
their purpose to further interfere with force in the
business and organization of this assembly, upon
which some fifty-two members and the Speaker
withdrew, declining to participate any longer in the
business of the House under the dictation of the
military.'

Such being the facts, Louis A. Wiltz, as Speaker,
respectfully appeals to the President to be informed
' by what authority and under what law the United
States army interrupted and broke up a sessions
of the House of Representatives of the State of
Louisiana ? ' Should it appear, Wiltz goes on to
say, that this invasion has been made without law
and authority, he urgently requests that the Federal
troops may be ordered to restore the House to its

BANDITTI. 71

old position, and he demands, no less urgently,
that the Federal officers shall be instructed by the
War Department that it is no part of their duty
to interfere with the internal workings of a general
assembly.

What is President Grant to say ?

Cassar — as General Grant is now called, not
only in the South, but in the North and West — is
not so confident as Belknap and his adjutants that
things are all going well in New Orleans. America
has many voices, and her voices reach him in the
secret places of his Cabinet. They strike him like
the roar of coming storms.

Accounts of what was clone in Eoyal Street on
Sunday night and Monday morning fill the daily
prints of every town from Galveston to Portland,
from Savannah to San Francisco. Most of these
accounts are printed with satirical and indignant
leaders. Many of the writers treat the incident as a
pastime. Is it not Carnival — a time for quips and
cranks ? This Negro orgy in the State House is
a joke ; that drinking-bar, those hot suppers, that
midnight caucus, and those morning cocktails,
are conceits of cornic writers. But the press, in

72 WHITE CONQUEST.

general, take the thing in serious mood, and to
their credit the ablest Kepublican journals are
the sternest critics of De Trobriand's acts. Are
we in France ? they ask. Is Grant a Bonaparte ?
Are Emory and De Trobriand the hireling soldiers
of a bastard empire ? Are we already governed
by a Csesar, and is the White House an American
Tuileries ?

Each word pronounced of late by President
Grant is scanned, and in their present temper
people are disposed to find Caasarism lurking under
phrases which at any other time would* seem no
worse than awkward forms of speech. Grant is
seldom happy in his words. Knowing his weakness,
he is silent in strange company; but the ruler of a
great country cannot choose but speak and write ;
and with all his great qualities he is often unfor
tunate in his use of tongue and pen. His recent
Message to Congress on the Centennial Exposition is
a case in point. In this State paper he gives a new
reading to that famous passage in the Declaration of
Independence which describes the primary rights of
man as ' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
By way of better reading, President Grant describes

BANDITTI. 73

Americans as a people engaged in ' the pursuit of
fame, fortune, and honours ; ' not of honour, but
of ' honours.' It is nothing, probably, but a clumsy
phrase ; yet critics roused to anger cry out
against it, as the very accent of a Caesar. Fame,
fortune, and honours ! Are these things the ideals
to be held before American youth? Snakes hide
in grass — Caesars may lurk in an unguarded
phrase.

A whisper of the President's doubts and fears
arrives at head-quarters, in the St. Charles Hotel.
The adjutants want a little more ' vigour ; ' and
Sheridan, who never stops to weigh his words
telegraphs to his friend the Secretary of War :

New Orleans : Jan. 5, 1875.

' Please say to the President that he need give
himself no uneasiness about the condition of affairs
here. I will preserve the peace, which it is not
hard to do, with the naval and military forces in and
about the city ; and if Congress will declare the
White Leagues and other similar organizations,
White or Black, banditti, I will relieve it from the
necessity of any special legislation for the preserva
tion of peace and equality of rights in the States of

74 WHITE CONQUEST.

Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas ; and the Executive
from much of the trouble heretofore had in this
section of the country.

' P. H. SHERIDAN.'

Ave Csesar! With the fleet and army now at
New Orleans, no White citizen dares to stir !

The White Leaguers to be denounced by Caesar
as bandits are the White people — planters, advocates,
physicians, bankers, clergymen, owners of the land,
the buildings, and the produce — masters of all the
liberal and domestic arts. A majority are of English
origin. What Sheridan asks is nothing less than
that the English race in Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Arkansas shall be put beyond the pale of law, and
handed over to the military power. Give him free
range, and the Executive shall have no further
trouble in these parts. Here is no Carnival prince,
as people say, in sport. Men recollect the Peigan
business. Since Sheridan paid his visit to their
hunting-grounds, the Executive has never been
troubled by reports from Peigan camps.

The evening papers print the text of Sheridan's
telegram. Banditti ! Banditti ! Still banditti ? Yet

BANDITTI. 75

a change of tone is evident in this despatch.
Yesterday the word was applied to White leaguers
only ; now it is applied to similar organizations,
whether White or Black. Sheridan has learned, not
merely that a Black League exists, but that a
Black leaguer may be brother in offence to a
White leaguer. No longer of opinion that a pro
clamation by President Grant is sufficient, Sheridan
now asks the ministers to get an Act of Congress
passed, giving him authority to hang such men as
General Ogden and Captain Angel, Governor
McEnery and Lieutenant-governor Penn.

Banditti ! How the word appears to leap on
every lip and blister every tongue ! Banditti ? We
banditti ? We, the proudest gentlemen and noblest
gentlewomen in America, branded as outlaws by a
subaltern of General Grant !

' You see a female bandit,' sneers a young and
lively girl, on whose father we make an afternoon
call. 'A dozen bandits,' laughs a famous soldier,
introducing me to an evening circle at the Boston
Club. These citizens fret and fume, not only
against the phrase, but what the phrase implies.

76 WHITE CONQUEST.

A bandit is an outlaw, and an outlaw subject to the
military arm.

A fire-spirit seems to have breathed all day
on street and quay. At midnight, Sheridan tele
graphs to Belknap, using a secret cipher for his
message :

New Orleans : Jan. 5, 1875.

' There is some excitement in the rotunda of the
St. Charles Hotel to-night on the publication by the
newspapers of my despatch to you calling the secret
armed organization, banditti. Give yourself no
uneasiness. I see my way clear enough, if you will
only have confidence. ' P. H. SHERIDAN.'

Belknap has confidence; so have the adjutants.
Cassar is not so sure. Cassar is never half so sure of
things as his lieutenants. Will the army support a
purely military policy ? American soldiers are
American citizens. Though brave and loyal, they
are free men, caring little for glory, and much
for liberty. On whom besides Sheridan can the
President rely ? Sherman stands aloof. McDowell
is offended, not only by the loss of his Department
on the Gulf, but by the secret orders under which

BANDITTI. 77

his province has been seized. Yet Belknap, more
Caesarian than Caesar, wires to New Orleans :

War Department: Jan. 6, 1875.

4 Your telegrams all received. The President and
all of us have full confidence, and thoroughly ap
preciate your course. ' W. W. BELKNAP.'

All of us ? Who are these ' all of us ? ' The
telegram is dated ' War Department.' ' All of us '
may only mean the adjutants and secretaries ; but as
Belknap is a Cabinet minister, ' all of us ' may mean
the whole Executive. In this sense it is read by
General Sheridan's staff. If they are right this
telegram is the most serious document issued since
the war. If Hamilton Fish and Benjamin H.
Bristow have endorsed the military action in this
city, we may look for storms.

At noon a second telegram comes, in explana
tion of the first, which seems to prove that Fish
and Bristow are as much committed to Cassarisna
as either Williams or Belknap ; yet Sheridan, after
reading and re-reading the document, feels un
certain of the sense, and puzzled as to what he is
empowered to do. The message runs :

78 WHITE CONQUEST.

War Department : Jan. 6, 1875.

4 You seem to fear that we have been misled by
biassed or partial statements of your acts. Be
assured that the President and Cabinet confide in
your wisdom, and rest in the belief that all acts of
yours have been and will be judicious. This I in
tended to say in my brief telegram/

How is Sheridan to take these words? The
Cabinet is now associated with the President, but
there is no more talk of approval. They confide
in his wisdom ! Yesterday their cry was for energy.
Energy gave them confidence. Now they rest in
'the belief that his acts have been and will be
judicious ! Was Philip Sheridan sent to New
Orleans in mid- winter, to be judicious ? Is the
word a hint ? No order now to be quick and stern
. — to lay on and spare not ! Where is the reply to
his request that ministers will get a short bill pushed
through Congress branding the White citizens as
outlaws, and turning them over to his subalterns ?
Not a word. Taking then this second message as
a call to order, he answers at night :

New Orleans : Jan. 6, 1875.

4 The city is very quiet to-day. Some of the

BANDITTI. 79

banditti made idle threats last night that they would
assassinate me. ... I am not afraid.

'P. H. SHERIDAN.'

Ten minutes -after this message is posted in
New Orleans, every lip is rippling into merriment
and mockery. ; Afraid ! Who's afraid ? I'm not
afraid. Are you afraid? Why, Sheridan's not
afraid ! Ha, ha ! Even Phil. Sheridan's not afraid ! '

Cgesarism has strong points ; but the temper
to put up with scorn and sarcasm is not one of
those strong points.

8o WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE VIII.

THE CONSERVATIVES.

AN aide-de-camp brings us an invitation from
General McEnery to visit the Conservative head
quarters in Canal Street ; and in company of my
old friend Consul De Fonblanque we start from our
hotel, now known as ' Head-quarters of the Gulf.'

General McEnery occupies a suite of rooms in
Canal Street, looking on the effigies of Henry Clay,
in which apartments he holds a modest court.
' You're not afraid to enter,' asks a senator,
meeting us on the stairs, 'although we are
banditti?' No, we are not afraid. Some wag has
gummed a caricature of Sheridan to the wall.
The general is represented as a dog snapping at a
Louisiana cavalry officer. ' Poor stuff,' says the
Senator, passing in ; ' poor stuff — but boys will have
their fun. We have the Southern genius, and our
boys delight in mockeries and burlesques.'

THE CONSERVATIVES. 81

On entering the cabinet, we find Governor
McEnery, Lieutenant-governor Penn, and several
Senators, who decline to sit with Kellogg's group,
under the presidency of Caesar C. Antoine. A
more courteous and decorous body of gentlemen
than these Conservative Senators could not be seen
in common-room at Oxford or committee-room in
Westminster. Finer heads and gentler manners
would be hard to find in any country, and you
feel at once that, whether these gentlemen are
right or wrong in their special claims, they will
not be easily beaten from the ground they once
take up.

General McEnery is a small man, something
like President Grant in face, with meditative eyes,
and dreamy features, half- concealed by thick
whiskers and heavy moustache. General Penn is
younger than his chief; a typical Southern man,
with shaven chin, black eyes and eyebrows, and a
penthouse of moustache ; in accent and appearance
the embodiment of fighting power. General Ogden
has a round head, set on a sturdy frame ; a
prompt and ready man, not troubled, one might

fOL. II. G

82 WHITE CONQUEST.

say, by doubts and scruples as to where his duty
lies. All three are gentlemen of property. ' We
claim,' says General McEnery, ' to represent ninety-
five per cent, of all the property in this city, ninety-
eight per cent, of all the property in this State/
From what we learn in other quarters we have
reason to believe this statement true. 'And yet/
adds Penn, laughing, ' we, who own nearly all the
property in the State, are bandits ! '

Bandits are not usually men of property ; are
not so in Spain, in Greece, in Asia Minor, and in
California. If Vasquez were able to read the papers,
lie would be pleased to find, on the authority of
General Sheridan, that a good many of his brethren
sit on the bench and practise at the bar.

'No one contests your claim to represent the
wealth of New Orleans ; the question is about
inhabitants, not property ; and you claim, we
understand, to have a true majority of votes in
favour of the Conservative candidates ? '

' We have,' the Governor answers, ' a majority
of votes; not large, yet large enough for us, if 'we
are left alone, to carry on the government, and
restore a reign of peace.'

THE CONSERVATIVES. 83

'Have not the coloured people a majority of
votes in the whole State— ninety thousand against
seventy-six thousand ? '

1 On the present lists, they have,' replies the
Governor ; ' but the lists are drawn in fraud. How
can the coloured people have more votes than we
have ? In numbers we are nearly equal — three
hundred and sixty-two thousand Whites to three
hundred and sixty-four thousand Blacks. These
figures are not ours. The census was taken
under Warmoth's government. We know that
some of the returns are false — and false in favour
of the coloured men. But take the figures as
they stand. How can a difference of two thousand
in the population, yield a difference of fourteen
thousand in the voting lists ? '

' That is not easy to make out.'

' Except by fraud ; by manifest and unblushing-
fraud. The fact is, Negroes are registered in dif
ferent names and different parishes. Dead Negroes
are kept on the lists ; Negroes under age are put on
the lists. Women are inscribed as men. Wherever
you have Black officials, supported by a Black
police, you have abuse.'

84 WHITE CONQUEST.

'Is it true, General McEnery, that Conservatives,
as a rule, object to giving Negroes political power? '

' Among Conservatives that is an open question.
Many of us think it a great mistake to have given
the coloured people votes ; but the United States,
which gave them liberty, thought fit to give them
votes. We bow to facts. You meet men who
would take away the Negro's personal freedom
as well as his political power ; but the majority of
citizens has ceased to dream of going back to the
old state of things. A Conservative would like
to see the Eight of Voting settled and defined by
law. In all free countries certain classes, such as
paupers, idiots, and prisoners, are excluded from the
voting lists. In some free countries, those who
cannot read the lists and sign their names, are not
allowed to vote. With an understanding of this
nature, the Conservatives of Louisiana would admit
the Negro to political rights.'

' You have no fear of educated votes ? '

6 No fear at all ; for educated men are never led
by scalawags. Even now, the education tells. If
all the Negroes were to pull together — ninety
thousand against seventy-six thousand — they might

THE CONSERVATIVES. 85

elect Pinch for governor and have a strong majority
in the Chambers. But we have educated negroes
in Louisiana like Tom Chester, and educated
Africans are no more likely to agree in politics
than educated Anglo-Saxons. When a Negro learns
to spell he sets up as a leader. He follows no
one ; least of all a man of his own colour. If a
Negro owns a cabin and a patch of garden, he
becomes Conservative and votes against the scala
wags. A Conservative Negro Club exists in every
parish in Louisiana ; and in spite of Kellogg's pro
mise that every Negro voting the Grant ticket shall
have forty acres and a good mule, thousands of
Negroes voted with us in the late elections. Tens of
thousands will vote for us when the Federal troops
retire.'

From General McEnery's cabinet we go to the
Conservative Lower House, in St. Louis Street,
where we are cordially received by Speaker Wiltz.
A man of spare figure, closely-cropped hair, and pale,
wan face, the Hon. Louis A. Wiltz has an easy and
yet resolute manner. As we enter the House Captain
Kidd is speaking ; Kidd, a lawyer and a soldier, and
of equal standing in the camp and at the bar. He

86 WHITE CONQUEST.

proposes that the whole body of Conservative legis
lators shall march to the State House, lower down
the street, and demand admission to their seats.
Sixty-six gentlemen are present : the fifty-three
members who are certified, and thirteen others who
are wrongfully unseated by the Kellogg board.

' You profess to be a lawful House ? ' we ask the
Speaker.

' No,' says Wiltz, in a decided tone ; ' We claim
to be a legal quorum ; but we call ourselves a
caucus, not an assembly; for we mean to keep
within the law, even in such things as words.'

While Kidd is urging the Conservatives to take
a more decided course, a telegram is sent to Wash
ington, asking Senator Thurman for advice. Thur-
man is a leading Democrat, sitting in Congress for
Ohio, and is much consulted by Conservatives in
the South. ' Be patient,' is the wise reply.

' Our policy is patience,' says the Speaker ; ' we
must wait. Time fights for us. The dodge of forty
acres and a good mule cannot be tried again. All
tricks wear out. We can afford to wait. Of course,
we suffer by delay ; but we should suffer more by
violence. The gentlemen sitting on -these benches

THE CONSERVATIVES. 87

either own, or represent men who own, nearly all
the stores and ships, the magazines, hotels, and
banks, of New Orleans. Can yon fancy they
have any interest in disorder ? If a pane of glass is
broken, we have to bear the loss. The scalawags
have nothing to risk except their skins, and they
are careful not to risk their skins. What can it
matter to Kellogg and Packard, Antoine and Pinch-
back, whether property declines or not ? We stake
our all on peace and order ; but onr brethren in the
northern cities have yet to understand this fact.
Events are teaching them, and teaching them very
fast/

In crossing the French quarter we meet Senator
Trimble, a Republican of local name.

4 A Southerner and a Republican ? '

' Well,' answers Senator Trimble, ' like many of
my old party, I am becoming rather cautious in my
theories. Events are shaking my belief in platforms.
An American has surely something higher to preserve
than blind fidelity to a party flag.'

Senator Trimble is impressed as Colonel Morrow
and the Congressional Sub- Committee are impressed.
Morrow has now reported to General Emory, who

88 WHITE CONQUEST.

has sent his statement on to General Sherman, that
' after wide and close enquiry in the counties lying
on Eed Eiver he is convinced that, so far as relates
to the United States, there is not the slightest dis
position to oppose the general government, but that
the opposition to the State government by Kellogg
and Antoine cannot be put down. . . . The
present State government cannot maintain itself
in power a single hour without the protection of
Federal troops! . . . The State government has not
the confidence and respect of any portion of the
community.' General Sherman has sent these warn
ings on to Washington, marked by him with the
significant words — ' for the personal perusal of
General Grant.'

What say the Sub-Committee ? Foster of Ohio,
and Phelps of New Jersey, agree with Potter of
New York, in a Eeport to Congress, setting forth
these five facts :

First : that the late election was mainly a fair one ;

Second : that no unusual pressure was put on
coloured voters ;

Third : that many of the Negroes wish to get
rid of Kellogg ;

THE CONSERVATIVES. 89

Fourth : that the Eeturning Board was unlaw
fully constituted and made false returns ;

Fifth : that the Assembly was transacting busi
ness when De Trobriand drove the Conservative
Members out of their seats by force.

A Eeport, embodying these five facts, has been pre
sented to Congress, and has roused the country like
a crash of war. The full Committee is coming
down, but no one thinks the four Members who
have not been here will contradict the three who
have. From east to west, the country seems to be
aflame.

Quick, sensitive, meridional as are the men
of New Orleans, they are not prepared for such an
outbreak of White sentiment as fires the North.
Boston is not less eager in sympathy than New York.
Pittsburg joins hands with Cleveland ; Cincinnati
calls aloud to San Francisco. Never, since President
Lincoln's death, has so much passion found a vent in
speech. Statesmen who weigh their words are
coming to the front, arraigning President Grant of
something like high treason to the commonwealth.
Adams in Boston, Bryant in New York, are giving
the highest intellectual sanction to the general fury.

9D WHITE CONQUEST.

Evarts, the ablest lawyer in America, is denouncing
Sheridan and De Trobriand, in terms not often
applied by lawyers to the lowest tools of a despotic
power. The curses showered on Kellogg have a bit
terness unequalled since the war.

Should President Grant back down, repudiating
Sheridan and letting Kellogg go, where, in such
a reign of anarchy, will the legal government
of the State reside ?

CHAPTER IX.

GOVERNOR WARMOTII.

4 WHERE will the government reside ? ' repeats
General Warmoth, to whom we put this question.
' Here ! The only legal government in Louisiana re
sides in me. I am the governor. No man but myself
has been recognised by Congress as Governor of Loui
siana. Kellogg and McEnery are alike repudiated.
Kellogg is Governor by grace of General Sheridan.
If the Federal army left, McEnery would be
Governor by force of the White League. When
right and order gain the mastery, there will be no
legal Governor in Xew Orleans except myself.'

Henry C. Warmoth holds a position in this city,
not only on the legal ground of his election being
undisputed, but because he represents that large
mass of citizens who care for neither Blacks nor
Whites so long as they can mind their shops and
carry on their trade. These persons want to live in

92 WHITE CONQUEST.

peace, to earn their meat and drink, to keep a roof
above their heads. They take no thought for theories
of race. All men who want to buy are brethren in
their eyes. A Negro's dollar is as welcome in ex
change for shoes or whisky as a White man's dollar.
What have trading folks to do with wrangles over
equal rights ? Enough for them to pay their rents

and taxes, leaving such theories to lawyers and

•

senators.

Among the Negroes, too, Yv^armoth has a body
of supporters. He has never lied to them. He got
their votes without a promise of ' forty acres and a
good mule.' His promises are not so large as
Kellogg's, but he tries to carry out the pledges he
makes. To his ingenuity the Negroes owe the
metropolitan police, a force which some of them
regard as their only guarantee of freedom. As
Kellogg's star declines, the Negroes turn towards
Warmoth as a man of moderate counsels who might
keep them from collision with the Whites.

A man of parts and of the world, a soldier, with
a pallid brow and deep-set student eyes, Warmoth
has the grand style of domestic drama, and Southern
ladies are said to think him very handsome. He

GOVERNOR WARMOTH. 93

affects a courtly mode. Unlike the mass of carpet
baggers, who are not received in society, Warmoth
aspires to social consideration, and is sometimes
honoured by a card from leaders of fashion in New
Orleans. This difference is at once his merit and
his curse. Society has brought him into friendly
intercourse with men as stern in their Conservatism
as McEnery and Penn. Wiltz has received him ;
Ogden has visited him in jail. By his charm of
manner and his moderation of view, Warmoth has
half-reconciled the upper classes to his presence in
their town.

But his successes on a ground forbidden to his
comrades, fill the scalawag ranks with fury.
When Warmoth came to New Orleans, with the re
putation of a brave soldier and a cunning politician,
he was elected by the loyal citizens President of the
Grand Army of the Eepublic in Louisiana. The
Grand Army of the Eepublic is a patriotic associa
tion of men who fought in the war ; troops now
disbanded and dispersed, yet held together by the
brotherhood of arms and by the memory of service
in a great cause. A Grand Army of the Eepublic
exists in every State, enjoying the patronage of

94 WHITE CONQUEST.

Government, and enjoying this patronage most of all
in the Southern States. The President of such a
body holds a post of great advantage, and General
Warmoth turned his openings to such good account
that he carried the Governorship of Louisiana under
the Eeconstruction Act.

Of Warmoth's administration every man speaks
according to his party leanings : his friends affirm
ing that he kept order and encouraged trade, while
his opponents call him a rogue, a thief, a coward,
and a murderer. Conservatives who have no cause
to love him, allow that in a post of great risk
and heavy trials he proved himself to be a fairly
able and a moderately honest man.

Fair enemies do him so much justice ; not so his
former friends, either Eepublican fanatics or Con
servative trimmers. The Eepublican fanatics accuse
him of being the ruin of their party in New
Orleans. Warmoth, they say, disgraced the Ee
publican flag by his corruption. Warmoth, in con
nexion with Senator Jewell, started the Fusion, by
which their party was divided into two camps.
Warmoth, they allege, paralyses the Grand Army of
the Eepublic. Where is the Grand Army ? Why

GOVERNOR WARMOTH. 95

are the companies not up, raising their voices in this
critical hour ? Why are the Union soldiers stand
ing back, leaving Sheridan to fight alone ? Warmoth
is the culprit. Warmoth is bowing to the Conserva
tives ; seeking an entrance into club and society ;
kissing gloves to the ladies of Pennsylvania-avenue.

Yet these Eepublican fanatics are tame compared
with the Conservative trimmers, arid especially with
that Senator Jewell who was once his foremost ad
vocate. Jewell is manager of a paper called ' The
Commercial Bulletin ; ' a lively sheet, in which he
carries on a war of insult and reproach against his
former chief; not on the ground of high principle,
but on a minor question springing out of the great
conflict of race.

Shall Negroes be allowed to ride in street cars ?
Ladies answer, No. Car owners, unable to offend
their customers, answer, No, It is a bitter feud,
dividing families, like the acts of Kellogg and the
messages of Grant.

A group of other questions stand, as one may
say, around that of the street cars. Shall Negroes
be allowed to lodge in good hotels ? Shall Negroes
be allowed to dine at common tables?- Shall

96 WHITE CONQUEST.

Negroes be allowed to sit in any part of church ?
The carpet-baggers, who depend on Negro suffrages,
assert that all these privileges spring from the
admitted theory of ' equal rights.' If White and
Black are equal before a judge, they are equal
before a car-conductor and a tavern clerk. So say
the scalawags. The other side reply that the theory
of equal rights implies no privilege of the kind.
If two persons are equal, they are free to trade
together if they like, and not to trade together
unless they like. Equality consists in the right to
agree or disagree — to part or join, as each may
please. A free man cannot be compelled to buy and
sell with another. He who keeps a store is not
bound to sell his goods to anyone. He may select
his customers. If you run a street car, you have
a right to reject the applicant for a seat. In
practice you employ that right in the rejection of
whole classes. You refuse to carry idiots, beggars,
drunkards, rowdies, shameless women. You exclude
all persons dressed in rags or grimed with dirt, and
you expel all persons using foul expressions. You have
to think of decent people and the moral order they
require. Opinion rules ; and, be you Eepublican or

GOVERNOR WARMOTH. 97

Conservative, you must conduct your cars in accord
ance with public sentiment.

This question of whether the Negro shall or
•shall not be allowed to ride in street cars, excites
as much debate as the telegrams of Sheridan.
Everyone is suggesting remedies and discussing
compromises. General Warmoth suggests, that cars
might be started in Canal Street, to be marked with
a star, in which Negroes may ride, with such White
people as have no objection to their company. He
carries this suggestion to his old friend Jewell for in
sertion in the ' Bulletin.' Jewell declines to give it
space. ' Then I must try elsewhere,' says Warmoth.
Jewell is of opinion that the scheme should not be
broached. ' I think it may and should,' says
Warmoth. ' If you print that document,' cries Jewell,
' I will ruin you for ever.'

Warmoth prints his suggestion, and the two
Conservative leaders, McEnery and Wiltz, adopt it as
a reasonable compromise of the dispute. Next morn
ing Jewell comes out with a leader in which
Warmoth is described as ' Lazarus, raised from the
dead by Satan ; ' as a ' bold bad man, the originator
and promoter of every abuse,' as a ' congener ' of the

VOL. II. H

93 WHITE CONQUEST.

' rattle-snake,' and as a man of ' infamous record/
Warmoth defends himself by accusing Jewell of
6 lying — unmitigated lying.' He adds that Jewell's
malice towards him springs from his refusal to give
the Senator a government printing job !

Jewell now sends an agent to Warmoth's
residence in St. Louis Street to ascertain if he will
fight. Warmoth says he cannot meet a fellow like
Jewell, on hearing which reply, the Senator sends
him a challenge. Warmoth, to Jewell's great sur
prise, accepts.

What follows is a mystery as well as a tragedy.
Daniel C. Byerley, a Lieutenant in the Confederate
army, and a partner with Jewell in the printing
business, takes the quarrel with Warmoth on himself.
Byerley, a strong man, but maimed of his left arm,
follows Warmoth down Canal Street, where he assaults
him with a stout cane, striking him two sudden blows
on the head. Eeeling from these blows, Warmoth
retreats some steps. Byerley rushes on him. They
close, and Byerley throws his enemy to the ground.
Twisting and fighting, the two men roll to the
kerbstone, Byerley beating Warmoth on the head,
and Warmoth jobbing his knife into Byerley's side.

GOVERNOR WARMOTH. 99

A crowd runs on them, and lifts them up. Byerley
shakes his cane, but leaves the ground, leaning on
the arms of two friends, who bear him to a hospital
close by. Warmoth gives up his knife, and yields
himself prisoner to a captain of police.

Byerley lingers a few hours, and then expires.
Having met his death in lighting an intruder,
Byerley is the hero of New Orleans, and a long
train of carriages follows him to his grave. Governor
McEnery is one of his pall-bearers, and more than
two thousand citizens march behind his hearse. No
one pretends to think the worse of General Warmoth
for having killed a man. His prison is a court, his
visiting-book filled with famous names. McEnery
calls on him in jail. Ogden and Penn are no less
courteous, and Speaker Wiltz pays him a formal
visit. Five hundred citizens go to see him in a
single day. Never has Warmoth found himself so
popular. Nobody holds him guilty of the blood
so lately shed, and when the charge is brought
before a judge, he is at once discharged.

' I thought Byerley was fully armed,' says

Warmoth, in explanation of his use of the knife,

'and I only struck at him in self-defenca. He came

TT2

ioo WHITE CONQUEST.

on me by stealth, and struck me twice before I
saw him. The cane he carried was a sword-stick ;
a weapon as deadly as a sword ; and far more deadly
than a knife.'

This murder in the street has heated and per
plexed the situation; for, whatever men may think
of street fighting, a man with blood on his hands is
not an officer whom any reasonable man would like
to seat in the chair of State. In a more settled
country, such an act would drive a man from public
life ; and for the moment, even in Louisiana, War-
mouth has become impossible. How long will the
ban endure?

' You seem to think General Warmoth dead,'
,says one of his admirers. 'John Barleycorn is
dead. Bury him in a hole, and cover him with
earth. In five weeks he is up again. You'll live
±o see Warmoth President of the United States.'

131

CHAPTEE X.

CARPET-BAGGERS.

WILLIAM P. KELLOGG'S private secretary comes to
the hotel to say that if we will pay a visit to the
Legislature and Executive, Speaker Hahn and Go
vernor Kellogg will be happy to receive us at the
State House. In company of our consul, as before,
we start for Eoyal Street, the entrance in St. Louis
Street being still closed.

After some parley with Negro soldiers and police
we pass the door. A rush of foul ah", the reek of
bad cigars and worse liquors, drives us back. Phew I
The hall is nearly dark, and gas is burning in one
corner. Windows and doors are planked, and the
floors strewn with corks, broken glass, stale crusts,
and rotting bones. A crowd of loafers and officials
throngs the hall, most of them Negroes, all of them
smoking, jabbering, pushing. Here, a cotton picker
wants to go upstairs and see ' dat legislating show.

102 WHITE CONQUEST.

There, a carpet-bagger explains to a coloured voter
why the Negro has not yet received his ' forty acres
and a good mule.' A fellow bawls on the stairs,
as we push past him : ' Dat all right, anyhow ; the
culled men now hab dere rights ! '

After much ado with the Black police, who fancy
that being White men we must be spies and traitors,
we reach the Second Chamber, a long, uncarpeted,
and filthy room. Spittoons are laid about, and some
of the Negro senators smoke and loll in their easy
seats. The air is foul. Each senator has a chair,
on which his name is painted in big letters ; but
he seems incapable of sitting still. He loafs about ;
rises to order ; chatters with a crony. Five or six
senators are speaking, all at the same time, each
senator accusing the other of lying and deception.
* Order da !' c Missa Speeka ! ' ' Down, you nigga,
down ! ' The uproar beats the tumult of a country
fair.

Michael Hahn, the gentleman who presides,
seats us near his chair and offers us some explana
tions of the scene.

' You wonder we permit smoking in the
Chambers ? Well, gentlemen, my answer is, we

CARPET-BAGGERS. 103

don't. There is a rule against it ; but how am I
to put this rule in force ? We have no rule against
•chewing ; yet chewing is a nastier vice than smoking.
Eules are useless. Negroes will chew and smoke.'
' Why not let them smoke in other rooms ? '
' You think that easy. Sir, it is so far from
being easy that it is actually impossible.'
' How so ? '

6 Because we cannot spare a man from his seat.
You see we have only j ust a quorum present. If a
single member quits his place we are unable to pro
ceed.'

A Negro, named Deinas, member for St. John's
parish, rises, and in a voice to silence Spurgeon or
Punshon, rates the House. There is a certain elo
quence in Ids words. 'Yes,' says Speaker Halm,
•' there is something in these fellows. Nearly all of
them were born slaves. A dozen years ago hardly
•one of them dared to open his mouth in presence
of a White man.'

The Hon. Michael Halm affects not to know how
many members of his parliament are Black, how
many White. 'We take no note of colour,' he
remarks ; but while Massa Demas is thumping and

104 WHITE CONQUEST.

roaring, we count the heads, and find them twenty-
four Whites to twenty-eight Blacks. Twenty-four
and twenty-eight make fifty-two ; four members
short of a legal quorum ! Yet the Speaker has just
assured us that the House we see is a full House.
Counting again we find our numbers true.

4 Do you consider this assembly a lawful House,
Mr. Speaker ? '

'Yes, a lawful House, the Second Chamber of
Louisiana.'

' Only fifty- two Members are present.'

' Fifty- six answer to their names.'

0, Michael Hahn !

On passing to the Upper House, we find a tall,
pale Negro, with a small head and dissipated face,
presiding over fifteen Black and thirteen White sena
tors, who are debating whether they shall or shall not
read the Senators in Washington a lesson by sending
Pinchback up again as State Senator for Louisiana ?
This pale and dissipated Negro is the Hon. Csesar
C. Antoine. Lieutenant-governor of the State, sitting
in the chair by virtue of his office. No Conservative
senators are present.

Cassar C. Antoine is an African of -pure blood.,

CARPET-BAGGERS. 105

though he is not so dark as many of his brethren on
the Niger and the Senegal. Small in stature and
weak in frame, his only strength appears to lie in a
feminine sort of shrewdness. Antoine was a porter
in the Custom House. Before he took to politics he
could hardly get his pay, yet, having a place under
Government, he found the way open to public life.
His rise was rapid. From the bench of a porter he
passed to the chair of Lieutenant-governor. He
was a servant of clerks ; he is the master of senators.
Since the Caliph made his porter a pasha, no man
of his calling has been raised to so high a place. It
was a golden chance. Apart from accidents, An
toine is not a man who could have risen.

This Negro Cassar in New Orleans allows me to
see that he joins hands with the White Csesar in
Washington. Chewing his quid, and squirting his
tobacco-juice into a huge spittoon, he informs us
that he ' never seed sich a thing as dat affair with
Wiltz ; ' also that the ' culled people in Louisiana
don't mind General Grant having a third term, if he
like, or even a sixth term if he like.' Caesar in New
Orleans sails in the same boat with Csesar in the
White House.

io6 WHITE CONQUEST.

The Negro senators agree that the White fellows
in Washington are impertinent in rejecting Pinch.
He is the martyr of his skin. Those White fellows
talk about his character. What right have they to
pry into a gentleman's private life? They prate
about Governor Kellogg's election not being valid.
What right have those fellows to review a State
election in Louisiana ? Pinch shall go back. Pinch
is their choice. Pinch shall sit in their name under
the marble dome, among the chief sages of the
commonwealth !

On going with Antoine into Kellogg's cabinet
we encounter Pinch. The Negro is in high feather,
for the Negro senators have just affirmed once more
his election to the State Senatorship, and Antoine
has brought his credentials for the Governor to
sign and seal. Got up in paper collar and pomade,
Pinch smiles and smirks, and sickens you with his
bows and scrapes. You think of giving him twenty
cents. Kellogg appears to loathe the fellow, yet he
cannot well refuse his name and seal. Who knows
with what reserve he signs? Pinch watches him
with eager eyes, chewing his quid, arid spattering the
walls and carpets. Ach ! The scene is rich in comedy.

CARPET-BA GGERS. 107

Having got his papers signed. Pinch whips up his
satchel, sticks a fresh quid in his mouth, and leaves
the room with Antoine, the two Negroes going out
arm in arm, strutting and sniggering through ad
miring crowds. ' Dat Nig is some,' one fellow cries.
' You bet ? ' asks another. ' Golly,' says a third, 6 dat
Nig is ole Pinch ! ' And so the dusky hero vanishes
from our sight.

c It is a farce,' says Governor Kellogg. ' Pinch-
back is no more senator now than he was before.
He goes on a fool's errand, but these coloured
children must be humoured. When he reaches
Washington they will find out their mistake.'

Governor Kellogg is courteous, grave, and self-
possessed. It is a common saying that he lives on
lies. A friend who met me in Canal Street said :
4 Going to see Kellogg ? Let me warn you that the
man you are going to see is a wonder. He's not
afraid. All the Federal troops in New Orleans could
not make him tell the truth.' Governor Kellogg has
a smooth and winning way, which enemies may de
scribe as wheedling and deceptive ; but his eyes look
honestly into your face, and his tone of voice is
frank and earnest. He appears to me a stirring and

loS WHITE CONQUEST.

fanatical person, strongly wedded to his opinions,
and ready to spend and be ' spent in what he deems
the c good cause.' Turning from Pinch he asks if we
have seen the Chambers — an enquiry which enables
us to ask if he regards the Lower Chamber as a lawful
assembly.

' No,' he answers with a smile ; ' until we get a
legal quorum we are not a House. Some doubt
exists about the quorum ; our advisers tell us fifty-
four Members make a quorum, but the custom is to
reckon fifty- six ; and till the question has been
settled by the judges we abstain from acting on a
dubious right.'

' Have you fifty-four Members ? '

' No ; fifty-three. Speaker llahn has allowed
three candidates not returned by the Board to take
their seats. That act is wron^. Not bein^ a le^al

o o o

quorum, the Assembly has no power to give away
seats/

6 Nor to elect a Speaker ? '

' You are right. So far as such, things have been
done, they are unlawful and without my sanction.
Michael Hahn is no more Speaker than I am
President. My Chamber is a caucus 'and no more ;

CARPET-BAGGERS. 109

but Hahn is fond of titles, and the coloured mem
bers like to hear themselves called a Legislature.
We are waiting for a compromise. If President
Grant is firm, the other side will soon make terms.
I could find the three voters to make up my quorum,
but I will not pay the price. I wish to have an
honest Government, and should be rather glad than
otherwise to have a Conservative majority in the
Lower House. White people are easier to satisfy
than Black/

' Why let the Chamber meet, transact business,
and print journals, as though they were a lawful
Legislature ? '

' I cannot help myself. The other side are rich,
and we are poor. McEnery's group, composed of
rich people, can live without their pay ; our group,
composed of needy persons, must be paid. Unless
we have a pretext for giving them three dollars a
day, they cannot stay in New Orleans. In less than
a week thirty out of the fifty would be gone. I let
them meet, attend to formal matters, and receive
their salaries, but I caution them to leave all serious
business till we see our way. There is a fight' be
tween us. The Chambers are burning to pass an

i io WHITE CONQUEST.

Appropriation Bill ; but I refuse to let them bring it
in ; and tell the leaders plainly that they have no
legal powers.'

' If President Grant decides to support General
Sheridan, do you think the new Legislature may be
got to work ? '

' I hope the best ; but I am sickening of my
tasks. I shall be happy when the moment comes
for my release.'

' Eelease ! Does any one hinder you from leaving
New Orleans ? '

' A sense of duty hinders me. I am a party
man. Believing that the principles of my party are
the best for every corner of America, I have done
niy best to plant them in this region of the South.
My work is not yet done ; but I am older than I
was ten years ago. I have deserved my rest, but
shrink from taking it so long as any chance remains
of finishing what I came into this State to do.'

His tone is grave and almost sad.

; What is my life in New Orleans that I should
wish to stay ? To be regarded as an alien or de
nounced as an adventurer is nothing. I am shunned
by everyone except the wretch who seeks a place.

CARPET-BAGGERS. in

No lady speaks to me. No gentleman comes near
me. The rabble hoot, the rowdies fire. My name
a byword and a mockery, I am but too happy to
escape with life. Some day I hope to get away,
but not until my duty has been done.'

ii2 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ROTUNDA.

SCENE — Rotunda, New Orleans ; marble floor, and
open galleries, supported by fluted shafts. Time —
Wednesday, January 13, 1875, eight o'clock in the
evening. Persons present — General Sheridan, with
his staff, Lieutenant-governor Penn, Senators, Mem
bers of Congress, foreign consuls, sea captains, news1
paper scouts, orderlies, messengers, telegraph clerks,
and other crowds, including two English travellers.
Temperature — boiling point of mercury.

' Look out for squalls,' drops a w ell-known voice,
as we emerge from the dining-hall into the Rotunda.
* The affair is on, and must be settled either yea or
nay. If Grant backs down, there will be peace ; if
not, there will be war. Look out ! Before you go
to bed, the world will know the worst/

The central hall of our hotel is a grand apart
ment — the Rotunda of an edifice which in Italy

THE ROTUNDA. 113

would be called a palace ; a news-room, lounge,
divan, and stock exchange ; a place where mer
chants buy and sell, where gamblers square accounts,
where duellists look for seconds, and where every
one devours the news. Here telegrams are received
from every corner of the earth. Here journals are
hawked and politics discussed. All strangers in
the city lodge in the hotel, and citizens who want
them have to seek them in this hall, the central
point of Xew Orleans. Here idlers smoke, and chat,
and see the lions. In the Rotunda you buy places
for the carnival, numbers for the lottery, tickets for
excursion trains. In one recess you find drink, in
a second tobacco, for sale. Here you play billiards,
there poker, everywhere the deuce. From seven
o'clock to ten the hall is thronged by men of pleasure,
politics, and business, and the corridors boom with
voices, like the uproar of a stormy sea.

To-night the scene in our Rotunda is a sight.
General Sheridan, dressed in plain clothes, is standing
near a shaft, puffing his cigar, and chatting with his
friends. Is it design or accident, his standing with

o O

his back against that shaft, so that his person is
covered from assault except in front ? About him

VOL. II. I

ii4 WHITE CONQUEST.

fret and seethe a crowd of citizens, many of them
bearing proud, historic names. General Ogden is
here, General Taylor is here, and General Penn is
here. The lame man pushing through the crowd
]s General Badger, now recovering from his wounds.
The gentlemen near Sheridan, also in plain clothes,,
are General Emory and Colonel Sheridan, a younger
brother of the chief. Banditti ! How the Southern
fire darts out, the Southern pride expands, as Senator
and General cross the hall, restrained alike by
courtesy and policy from rushing on the man who
calls them outlaws and is only waiting for a word
to string them up ! With what a cold and haughty
mien these magnates pass the shaft against which
Sheridan leans !

6 Have you no fear of accidents ? ' I ask General
Penn.

' Not much,' he answers ; ; we are fiercely tried,
but we can bear the strain.'

' Many of these gentlemen, I suppose, are armed,
and some fanatic, vexed beyond endurance, may
create a row.'

' Such things may happen ; but the League is
under high control. No leaguer carries a weapon,

THE ROTUNDA. 115

not even a pocket-knife, on his person. We are
strong enough to do without knives and pistols. If
a fight must come, we shall go into it like soldiers,
not like Negroes and Kickapoos. But there will be
no fight — the President is backing down.'

A buzz of conversation swells and murmurs to
the dome, like flow and ebb of tides on shingle.
Now it rises to a roar, through which a military
band outside is hardly heard ; anon it sinks into
such silence that the click-click of the telegraph
needle strikes on the ear with pain. A crash of
kettle-drums rolls up. All eyes appear to seek the
clock, as though the dial were a living face on
which a man might read the secrets of President
Grant's Cabinet. All ears are strained towards the
telegraph clerk, as though his needles were living
spirits, from which men could force the secrets of
the Capitol. Messages come in as fast as clerks can
read them, so that we in the Rotunda learn what
is being said and done in our behalf, not only in
Charleston and Richmond, but in New York and St.
Louis, as soon as these things are known in Broad
way. Wires connect us with the Capitol, and we

i 2

ii6 WHITE CONQUEST.

are told of what occurs before it is known in
Pennsylvania-avenue .

The President, we learn, is much perplexed and
changes his decision every hour. Yesterday he was
rock ; this morning he is spray. A passionate and
obstinate man, he wants to rule his country as he
ruled his camp, and is amazed to find his country
men object to military rule.

Never has President seen a rising like that of
the northern and western cities on receipt of news
from New Orleans. Boston and Few York are up
in arms ; Chicago and Philadelphia are up in arms ;
St. Louis and Cincinnatti are up in arms. Cassarism
is answered by a White Eevival. Eloquent words
are ringing through the air ; Republicans joining
voices with Democrats in denouncing the policy of
President Grant. The venerable Bryant leads the
way in New York ; the liberal Adams is the spokes
man of Massachusetts. Evarts lends his name to
what is little less than an impeachment of the
President and his Cabinet. ' These practices,' cries
Bryant, ' must be denounced, must be stopped, must
be broken up for ever ! ' ' What right.' asks Adams,
' have soldiers of the United States to determine who

THE ROTUNDA. 117

shall sit in the Legislature of a State ? ' Evarts
brings the matter home : ' Here we have a national
gensdarmerie instead of a civil police ! The Legis
lature of Louisiana is as much a part of our
Government as the Legislature of New York/
Men who have never before this moment mixed
in politics, leave their books and join these enemies
of President Grant. 'Here is an act done in a
time of peace,' says Curtis, ' so dangerous to all
civil freedom, so bold and reckless a violation of
law, that men who have condoned everything else
are compelled to speak out.' Kellogg and Packard,
Antoine and Pinchback, are forgotten in the fury
now being vented on the great criminal at the
White House. Impeachment is demanded in a
thousand voices. Eesignation is suggested, and in
fact announced. The country seems aflame, the
whole White family rallying to the defence of
outraged law.

Yesterday the President seemed resolved to back
his lieutenant. He was asked by the Senate to
state what is passing in New Orleans, and how he
means to deal with matters ; for the reports of
Foster, Phelps, and Potter to Congress, clearing the

ii8 WHITE CONQUEST.

White citizens of New Orleans, and charging
disorder in the South on the military party, have
created a profound excitement. When such party
men as Foster and Phelps can find no word to say
for their political friends, the cause is lost ; yet
President Grant was minded to- go on, assume the
burthen of events, and leave Sheridan free to take
his course. He framed a Message to Congress in
this sense.

But beyond the War Office, where his adjutants
fumed and smoked, he found few backers. Senators
of his own opinions and of great experience in affairs,
came to his private cabinet and told him he was
wrecking his party, if not ruining his country.
The Eepublicans have lost so much, they are afraid
of risking more. By secrecy and silence on the
Csesarian question of a third term, the President
lost them many thousands of supporters in the
North, and now, by his unhappy interference with
the Legislature of New Orleans, the South is gone.
The Senators fear to face new trials. Are they to
go further in a course for which Eadicals like Foster
and Phelps cannot say a word ?

High office has no effect in softening censure

. THE ROTUNDA. 119

of the President's course. General Sherman takes no
pains to hide his views. Vice-President Wilson
opposes his official superior, and some of the leading
journals are demanding that Grant shall retire from
the White House, leaving his powers in Wilson's
hands. More than all else, Hamilton Fish declares
that if the President sustains Sheridan and justifies
-Durell and Packard, he will resign his post as
Secretary of State. This menace tells. Fish is not
only the ablest man in Grant's Cabinet, but one of
the ablest men in America. Bristow, Secretary of
the Treasury, takes the same line as Fish. Without
these gentlemen, the President's Cabinet could not
stand a week ; and if his Cabinet falls, who knows
what else may fall ?

The Governors of powerful States are talking in
an ominous way. ' A State has disappeared,' says .
Governor Allen to the people of Ohio ; ' a sovereign
State of this Union has no existence this night.' A
.sovereign State ! The President thinks he put an
*end to all that babble about sovereign States on
the battle field, and here, in one of the rich and
populous northern cities, the Governor of a great
State is talking of Louisiana as a ' sovereign

120 WHITE CONQUEST.

member of the Union. Governor Tilden, of New
York, is still more menacing and emphatic : ' For
similar acts our English ancestors sent the first
Charles to the scaffold and expelled the second
James from the throne.'

Louisiana is not more conscious than Ohio and
New York that the day is big with fate. The
policy of ruling by the sword has reached a turning-
point. To-night will see this policy either make
a step or fall back many steps. If Ca3sar rises, the
Eepublic sinks.

On what a thread the issue seems to hang !
While President Grant is pondering pros and cons,
a pistol-shot, fired by a fool, may start a civil war.
Sheridan is prepared to act, and the devastator of
the Sbenandoah would sweep the quays of New
Orleans as thoroughly as he swept the granaries of
Blue Pddge. If blood begins to flow, the President-
will support his officers ; but who can say how
many States will rally to the Government ? It is not
easy to assert. Since the fall elections many things-
are changed. The White Eevival has set in, the
centre of political gravity has been moved. A strong
majority of Democrats will sit in the new Chamber.

THE ROTUNDA. 121

If blood is shed, who knows what shape the White
Revival may assume ? Is it likely that men who
voted with the South seven weeks ago will arm to
crush her seven weeks hence ?

Some ladies peer down wistfully from the gallery
into the sea of dark and bearded faces which are
constantly raised to the clock. One lady is that
damsel who has come to the Eotunda on her
pleasure trip. Poor girl ! She sees these scowling
brows and haughty gestures. She has reason to
suppose that every man is armed. She knows that
all these people hate her lover with a fury not to
be appeased by blood. Who can assure her that
the evening will not close in massacre ?

A cry is raised at the operator's desk. News — •
news — from Washington !

' Eead, read ! ' scream a hundred voices. One
of the clerks jumps on a bench, the printed tele
graph slip in his hand, and waving it before his
audience, cries out lustily : ' Gentlemen, the President
backs down ! '

' Backs down ? ' each wild and pallid auditor
asks his neighbour ; ' Yes, backs down ! '

At once the strained and tragic situation softens ;

122 WHITE CONQUEST.

lips relax, eyes lighten into humour, and everyone
begins to chatter and shake hands. Some slip away
to spread the news elsewhere. The knots and groups
break up, and many seek for details in the messages
which still keep pouring in.

' Play over,' says the well-known voice ; ' Durell
repudiated, Belknap discredited, Sheridan excused.
The President abandons all responsibility. Sheridan
is not sustained, and his recommendations are des
cribed as unlawful. Yes, the play is over. Sheridan
will now have time for his pleasure trip, and he
may then go home to his wedding-cake. Third
term ? The third term is dead. Exit Ca3sar ! '

I23

CHAPTER XII.

GEORGIA.

ATLANTA, capital of Georgia, is rising from the
dust in which Sherman's too famous march from
Chattanooga left her— a sacrifice of war — when the
fair young city, not yet seventeen years old, perished
in her youth; wasted so fiercely that her waters
seemed to be on fire ; so thoroughly that a rose
bush here and there was all that told of former
opulence and present wreck. Atlanta, rising from
her ashes, is a type of Georgia.

Standing on a hill, the domes and turrets of
Atlanta, shining over belts of ash and pine, endow
her with a regal air. A natural crown of the ad
jacent flats, she looks the capital which a proud and
grateful people have made her since the great
calamity she suffered in the civil war. Her soil is
rich and ruddy, with the wealth and colour of a
Devonshire ridge. Wide fields and pastures lie

124 WHITE CONQUEST.

around ; these under grass, those under cotton, these
again under rice. Maize and tobacco grow on
every side, and overhead hangs a sky like that of
Cyprus. Here cattle browse ; there herdsmen trot.
Negroes with creels of cotton on their heads slouch
and dawdle into the town. The scene is pastoral
and poetic ; English in the main features, yet with
forms of life and dots of colour to remind you of
the Niger rather than the Trent,

Frame houses, painted white, with colonnades
and gardens, nestle in shady nooks and cluster
round hill-sides. About these villas romp and shout
such boys and girls as New England poets find
under apple-trees in Kent. What roses on their
cheeks ; what bravery in their eyes ! Here glows
the fine old English blood, as bright and red in
Georgia as in York and Somerset. But for her
Negro population, Georgia would have an English
look.

The Negro is a fact — though not the fact of
facts — in Georgia. Unlike Louisiana, Mississippi,
and South Carolina — States in which the Black
element is stronger in number than the White —
Georgia has a White majority of votes ; yet her

GEORGIA. 125

majority on the whole is slight, and her Negro
population is so massed as to command the ballot-
boxes in many counties. For example — in Baldwin
County, Early County, and Sumter County there are
nearly two Negroes to each White ; in Baker
County, Cam den County, Columbia County, Effing-
ham County, and Troup County there are more
than two Negroes to each White ; in Liberty
County there are nearly three Negroes to each
White ; in Bullock County and Hurston County
there are more than three Negroes to each White ;
and in Lee County there are four Negroes to every
White. If all the Negroes in these counties held
together, under the advice of carpet-baggers and
with the help of Federal bayonets, they might set
up Negro judges, sheriffs, and assessors, as in
Louisiana and Mississippi, and might send up Negro
senators to Atlanta, if not to Washington. Lee
County might have her Antonie, even though
Georgia failed to achieve her Pinchback. At present
most of them are busy on their farms and home
steads, leaving politics alone, though every word
'from Vicksburg and Jackson, Shreveport and New
Orleans, is apt to rouse them like a cry of fire.

126 WHITE CONQUEST.

The session for 1875 is opening under great
excitement. Unlike her neighbours, Florida and
South Carolina, Georgia has recovered her inde
pendence. She has now a native Governor in
James M. Smith. The Legislature and the Govern
ment are Conservative ; and being Conservative,
are bitterly opposed to President Grant.

Though suffering less than the Virginians and

o o D

South Carolinians by the war, the Georgians are
more exasperated than their neighbours in either of
their sister States ; the burning of Atlanta, the de
struction of property at Milledgeville, and the injuries
done to rails and roads, canals and bridges every
where, appearing in their eyes as acts of savage
vengeance rather than of lawful war. Such deeds
are not forgotten in a day, and till they are forgotten
they are never likely to be forgiven.

Ten years ago the greatest civil warfare ever
waged by man against his brother was burning in
these Southern cities. Armies to be counted by
hundreds of thousands trampled on these vineyards
and tobacco-fields. Fierce sieges were being carried
on, murderous battles were being fought, in
every Southern State. Dense woods- were fired,

GEORGIA. 127

broad rivers turned, fair villages destroyed. Ruin,
reigned everywhere. Need one wonder that scars
are left ? The rent and blackened walls of
Atlanta have not disappeared. It is in vain to
dream that the moral sores are healed. Wounds
inflicted in a civil strife last long. Israel was divided
for ever by her war of tribes. For ages the
contest of patricians and plebeians stopped the growth
of Borne. Internal feuds gave Seville to the Moor
and Dublin to the Saxon. Street conflicts opened
Constantinople to the Turk. Religious conflicts
weakened Germany and France. The raid on
Freiburg by the Swiss volunteers is still resented
by the Catholic Cantons. But the direst form of
civil war is that which has a social or a servile
cause. Long years elapsed ere Rome recovered from
her tug with Spartacus. English society was shaken
by Cade. Munzer's rising is still recalled with
horror by the people of Wiirtzburg and Rothenburg.
The French wars of the communists, the Spanish
wars of the comunidades, are not ended yet. Last
year, at Cartagena, we heard the names and pass
words used by Padilla in the reign of Charles the
Fifth.

128 WHITE CONQUEST.

' Have you many White leaguers in Georgia ? *
we ask a senator in Atlanta.

6 Yes,' he answers frankly ; ' you will find either
Black leaguers and White leaguers in every district
where you see Black and White men. A league is
but the sentiment of a class trying to become the
sentiment of all. We have White leaguers in At
lanta, but I must warn you against the idea, that in
Georgia we have any of the rascals of whom Sheridan
speaks and Eepublican journals write. There is a
true White League, and a false White League. The
true White League consists of a band of Conserva
tives, who wish to maintain order and preserve
property ; the false White League consists of a band
of destructives, who desire to break the peace and
ruin house and land. Which of these two sorts of
league are we likely to belong to — we, who own
and cultivate nearly all the land in Georgia?
Leagues are a necessity of our life, and will be
while a Federal army occupies our towns. Unless
we are prepared to see this city and this country
perish, we must unite our strength and close our
ranks. The false White League is a creation of the
President's private cabinet.'

GEORGIA. 129

' You think that much of this trouble is excited
by the Government in order to favour General
Grant's campaign for a third term ? '

' For nothing else. These hubbubs in Vicks-
burg and New Orleans suit his game. If Billy Eoss
were President, and Bear's Paw his Secretary of
War, you would hear of no Pin Leagues, Light
Horse and Mourning Bands ; but you would have
daily articles and monthly messages on Negro mis
deeds in Caddo and White encroachments on Eed
Eiver. When we have a Democratic President in
office, you will hear more of the Black League than
of the White.'

c The Black League is an actual fact ? '

' There is a Black League in every Negro village
and every Negro barrack. You can hardly doubt
that there is a Black League in Mississippi after the
murder of Jemmy Gray ? '

The murder of Gray, and the murderer's con
fession, are the talk of every city in the South.
Gray was a Negro lad, who came from his plantation
into Vicksburg, and was killed by order of a brother
Negro, named JefF Tucker. Oliver, a third Negro,
was employed to do the deed. Since his arrest,

VOL. II. K

130 WHITE CONQUEST.

Oliver lias turned on his employers and made a clean
breast of the dirty business. Gray, a member of the
Black League, heard in his lodge the purposes of his
chiefs. He learned that Vicksburg was to be at
tacked by Negro troops, assisted by a Negro mob,
and that all the White citizens were to be killed.
Gray set out to warn some people who had been
kind to him of the impending massacre. Jeff Tucker,
an officer in the League, suspected Gray, and ordered
him to be slain. Oliver expresses deep regret, for
Gray had never injured him ; but Tucker was his
officer, and he was bound by oath to do whatever
he was told, even to the shedding of a brother's
blood. When Tucker bade him go and kill Gray
he went and killed him, never asking why, because
he dared not ask. He says he acted out of fear.
If he had not killed Gray, he would have been killed
himself.

In Georgia the coloured people seem content,
but who can say how long this calm may last ? The
Negro is a child of mystery. No man can guess
what he will do or will not do. Voices move him,
fetishes inspire him. Traces of Ins African super
stitions cling to him, even in a Georgian school and

GEORGIA. 131

chapel. He is open to such hints as ' forty acres
and a good mule,' and plenty of carpet-baggers
are at hand, ready, at auspicious moments, with
such hints. He has enjoyed one spell of power,
and the intoxication of that period hartgs about his
hut and dug-out. What a day of glory for the son
of Ham ! A Negro loves to sit in a chair of state,
to hear men say 'his honour,' and to fine White
rowdies for getting drunk : ' Hi, hi ! You bad
fellow. You drunk— Ten dollar ! Hi, hi ! '

Like other savages the Georgian Negroes want
to rule. It is no use to tell them they are fewer
than the Whites, and that the greater number rules
the less. They think it should be turn and turn
about. The Whites have had their day, and now
the Blacks should have their day.

Thousands of these Negroes have been drilled
and armed by the State authorities. Most of the
militia regiments are Black, and these Black regi
ments are officered by scalawags and carpet-baggers,
who have swarmed into the cotton-fields and rice-
grounds from distant towns. These regiments of
coloured troops, commanded by strangers and ad
venturers, are the cause of much distrust.

K 2

132 WHITE CONQUEST.

Some scalawag whispers that General Grant de
sires to see the Negro uppermost in the State, his
hands in White men's pockets, and his heels on
White men's necks. The Negroes and Mulattoes
think these scalawags speak the truth. Poor things!
they cannot read and write. As children they
were slaves. Of politics and history they know less
than the most stupid Suabian boor or Wiltshire clown.
Of moral codes and social sciences they have hardly
an idea ; but the poorest African in Georgia can see
the difference between a cabin and a house, a full
table and an empty one, a warm coat and a cotton
rag, a place in the gutter and a seat in the legislative
hall. ' Look,' cry the scalawags, ' at Louisiana and
Mississippi ! There you have Negro sheriffs and
assessors, judges and legislators. In New Orleans
and Jackson you have Negro Senators, Negro Lieu
tenant-governors, and Federal armies keeping down
the Whites. Louisiana sends Pinchback, Mississippi
sends Kush, to represent the coloured people in the
national Capitol ! Why not unite and carry your
own candidates ? '

Fired by such visions Sam begins to dream of
j'unning for the State legislature. If not- so lucky as

GEORGIA. 133

Pinchback lie may be as fortunate as Antoine. If
lie cannot reach Antoine, lie may hope to rival
Deinas. If Pete can sit in Jackson or New Orleans,
why should not Sam aspire to sit in Atlanta ? The
lowest senator, he hears, gets three dollars a day
for doing nothing but loll in an easy chair, chew
tobacco, answer when his name is called, and now
and then get up to have a drink. A Negro toiling
on a plantation has to pick and carry cotton for
three dollars a week. Why not attempt in Georgia
what the coloured people do so easily in Mississippi
and Louisiana ?

' You would be much amused by some of our
dark politicians,' says to me a well known personage.
' This morning, as my coloured servant was cleaning
my boots, he looked up into my eyes, and, with a
broad grin across his face, asked me how he could
get to run for the State Legislature. The fellow
can hardly read, and cannot write ; he cleans my
knives and holds my horse ; and he wants to make
laws for me ! '

134 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE XIII.

BLACK ASCENDANCY.

IN the relations of her White people to the coloured
race, South Carolina is the most unlucky section of
America. In Louisiana the two colours are nearly
balanced. Nine or ten years may turn the scale ;
since the European family increases while the African
falls away. Even in Mississippi the majority of
coloured people is not great ; not more than seven
Blacks to six Whites. Neither of these unhappy

States is so far overweighted by her African numbers

as to make contention in the ballot-boxes hopeless.

In South Carolina — called the Prostrate State — the

case is otherwise. Negro ascendancy is complete ;

the African and his bastard brother the Mulatto

reign supreme.

The last census gives ten Africans to seven

Europeans in the State of South Carolina. In seven

BLACK ASCENDANCY. 135

counties the Whites have a good majority ; in three
others they have a slight majority ; while in the re
maining twenty-two counties the Negro majorities
are large. In Eichland County and Charleston
County they number two to one. Among the
bayous and savannahs the dark people are almost
separated from the fair. In Beaufort County they
are nearly six to one ; in Georgetown County they
are nearly seven to one. Greenville, Anderson, and
Spartanburg counties may return scholars, advo
cates, and planters to the Legislature ; but the voice
of a Trenholm or a Eussell counts for no more in
the assembly than that of a Negro from the swamp ;
and for every Trenholm or Eussell in the assembly
of South Carolina there are three Negroes from
the swamp. Under a law of equality, enforced
by a Federal army, what chance has the European
settler in such a State ?

Dark as the prospect is, the Carolinians are
not sure that they have reached their blackest point.
The great zone of swamp and savannah, stretching
from Cape Fear to the Mississippi, and from the
Mississippi back to St. Andrew's Sound, appears to
be the African's new home. Within this zone

136 WHITE CONQUEST.

he lives and thrives ; and if he has a preference
within this zone it is for the hot and humid regions
lying between Columbia and the sea. Climate
and produce suit him equally. Squash is cheap,
tobacco grows wild, and sugar canes abound. Here,
if anywhere, the Negro may hope to make a
stand ; and hither, it would seem, the Africans are
tending, under the action of those mysterious laws
of race which the Emancipation Act has called into
free and easy play.

In other zones the Africans are falling off.
Above this sympathetic zone, yet still within the
Southern limits, runs a line of country from the
Chesapeake to the Missouri and the Arkansas, in
which Negroes dwelt and multiplied in a state of
servitude. But from these great districts they are
now retreating towards the South and towards the
sea. Missouri and Kentucky are casting out their
Negro citizens, not by public edicts, but by
agencies of which no record can be kept. Mary
land is following Kentucky, and Virginia following
Maryland.

Whether the whole displacement springs from
a mere shifting of the Africans from North to

BLACK ASCENDANCY. 137

South, is matter of dispute. Who understands
those movements which are common to man and
beast, to bird and fish ? What sorcerer has probed
the secret of the pilchard, the locust, and the
springbok? Who knows the true reasons which
led the Goth in ancient days to leave his native
seat, which drives the Mongol at this present
hour to quit his sacred soil ? To say that the
ancient Gotli and modern Mongol break away
from old associations in search of food and drink,
is but to answer for a part of the material facts.
That theory would not cover the case of bird and
fish, much less of man and beast. Some creatures
move in search of warmth and light, and some are
led by instincts and emotions tending to the nurture
of life. Men are often swayed by higher instincts
than the love of meat and warmth. What forces
drove the Crusaders to Syria and the Pilgrims to
New England? Not the want of food and drink.
What passion led the Jesuits to Paraguay, the
Franciscans to Mexico? Not the desire to lodge
in huts and cover the body with antelope skins.
What impulse carries the Euss to Troitza, the Moor
to Mecca, and the Mormon to Salt Lake?

138 WHITE CONQUEST.

' You think the coloured people are moving from
Kentucky and Virginia into South Carolina ? '

' Not a doubt of it/ says a journalist of whom
we seek an answer. ' Always on the road, in my
vocation, I see the files and squads, full-blood,
mulattoes, and quadroons, all creeping from the
North. Sickness thins the number ; for the darkies-
are rotten sheep, and perish on the road. More
die than reach our soil.'

What are the facts ? Are South Carolina,
Alabama, and Mississippi, chiefly South Carolina,
taking in the whole drain from Missouri and
Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia? Or, beyond
the change implied by exodus, is there a great
margin of displacement, telling of decay?

Two tests may be employed. Is the African
family on the whole increasing in America ? Are the
members of this family better lodged and fed ?

Opinions differ as to whether the Africans are
increasing in America. The rate of increase has
assuredly fallen off. Nobody fancies they are multi
plying like the Europeans in America. Every statist
owns that they are not growing under freedom as
they grew under servitude. Nor is there much

BLACK ASCENDANCY. 139

difference as to whether Negroes and Mulattoefc
are better lodged and fed in freedom than they were
in servitude. Exceptions may occur, but as a rule
the coloured people live in worse houses and eat
less healthy food. A man sucks more canes, and
chews more quids ; yet eats less wholesome food,
and occupies less wholesome rooms. Child murder,
the vice of every savage tribe, has come to be
a common crime.

Negroes are averse to rearing offspring. Children
give much trouble, cost much money, and involve
much care. In servitude the Negress was com
pelled to nurse her offspring, for her children were
property. In freedom, she is left to instinct ; and
the instinct of a Negress, like that of a Mongol
and a Fijian, sometimes tempts her to this form of
murder. Papals and Bulloms slay their issue in
Africa ; and American teaching has not rooted out
this African custom in America. In a state of free
dom the original genius of a race is likely to return.
In South Carolina, a Negro, living under freedom,
has to feed and clothe his child, and every dollar
spent on his baby's food and clothes, is so much
loss to him in quids and drams. Child murder, I

140 WHITE CONQUEST.

am told, is now as common in the Negro swamp,
as in a Chinese street or on a Tartar steppe.

This is the true Negro Question ; not such actual
trifles as whether Blacks shall ride in the same cars
and sit at the same tables as Whites : or such
relative trifles as whether Blacks shall vote, make
laws, and carry arms like Whites? The true
Negro Question in South Carolina and elsewhere
is whether, in the freedom of nature, the coloured
man can live?

In servitude men are not allowed to roam.
The main step, perhaps, from savage licence into
settled law, is that abridgment of personal liberty
which converts a nomad into a citizen. Some
savages cannot take this step. Can you confine an
African ? In freedom everyone is master of his
whim. He comes and goes as fancy prompts — one
week in Missouri, next week in Tennessee, a third
week on the Gulf. Turkey is trying to settle some
of her Arab tribes, but she has met so far with no
success. Russia's attempt to colonize her steppe
led her into serfage, and three hundred years of iron
discipline were needed ere her rulers thought the
Euss people broken of their ancient - wandering

BLACK ASCENDANCY. 141

habits. Are the Africans yet prepared for settle
ment ? You cannot fix a free Sioux, or a free
Apache on the soil. A Bed man cannot live in
competition with a White neighbour. Has the
Negro strength enough to stand alone? Under
servitude the Black men grew in numbers ; under
freedom the Eed men fell in numbers. Will the
Black men under freedom fail as the Eed men fail ?
Have the good and pious men who gave the Negro
freedom, only issued, in their ignorance of nature's
rules, an edict for his slow but sure extermination
from the soil ?

c Be sure of one thing,' says Colonel Binfield,
a Southern officer, who has studied the Negro
Question on the battle-field, in the tobacco grounds,
and in the public schools, ' we shall have no more
disorder in the streets. No local passion will dictate
our course. We made a great mistake in parting
from our flag ; but we have long since seen the
error of our way, and we shall not commit that
fault again. Our trust is in the law of life. The
Negro had his day of power. If he chafed us by his
petulance and folly he never awed us by his
strength. Even now, when he has a ruler of his.

142 WHITE CONQUEST.

own opinions in Columbia, a majority of friends
in the Legislature, and the command of ah* the
public forces, we have no fear of him. A European
is too strong for any African. Unless he stabs
you in the dark, or throws a brand into your
room, a coloured man can hardly do you harm.
The tussle of a White man with a Negro is the
tussle of a man with a woman. It is the same in
masses. Plant me one of your Utopias on the
Santee or Edisto ; set me ten Europeans in the
midst of ninety Africans ; give each of your
hundred settlers an equal share of soil, seeds,
implements, and money ; start them with a free
code and equal rights, and leave them to till the
ground, to make laws, and to rule themselves. In
ten years the White men will own the soil, the
granaries, and the money. Nature has given the
White man brain and strength, invention, courage,
and endurance of a higher quality, on a larger
scale, than she has given these elements to the
Black. In spite of accidents the White man must
be master on this continent. Why, then, should
we provoke an issue in the field ? JSTo one but
an enemy of White civilization wants a second

BLACK ASCENDANCY. 143

civil war. We only need to wait, certain to con
quer if we wait.'

My friend is right. A Negro cannot stand the
impact of free life ; the pressure rends and grinds
him. All the vital forces of this world are relative,
and for twenty centuries Europe has been the
nursery of living power. Europe supplies the
other continents with life — life in plants and
animals, as well as in the higher forms of man.
You bring a spruce from Europe to America.
That spruce will grow into a forest, and will kill
the native trees all round. Import a horse
and cow, and they will drive out buffalo and elk.
The lower forms give way in presence of a higher
type.

Negro ascendancy, even though supported for
a time by Federal troops, will fail before White
science, as surely as a forest of plants fades before
an English spruce and a herd of game before an
English horse.

144 WHITE CONQUEST

CHAPTEE XIV.

CHARLESTON.

OVERTOPPING Charleston, as St. Paul's overtops
London, springs the belfry of a new Orphan Asylum ;
crowning the gay city and expansive bay ; and
looking over goodly towers, bright gardens, and
ruined edifices. Emerging on the leads of this
edifice we find a watchman leaning in a corner,
smoking his pipe, and gazing at the sky. 'And
what may be about the time ? ' he asks. ' Time ?
just gone twelve.' 'Gone twelve? Then guess I'll
sling the bell.' Bang, bang ! Men lounging in the
streets below look up ; the hour is noon, say the
lotos-eaters ; yes, it is the hour of prayer. Alia
hu Akbar !

' You don't seem to mind a few minutes ? '
' No, Sir, we are not such fools as to bother
about a few minutes, more or less. Who cares ? '
This watcher in the belfry is a Carolinian, and

CHARLESTON. 145

his eirie in the clouds the heart of South Carolina.
What a proud and indolent people ; what a sunny,
picturesque place ! Observe the Ashley and the
Cooper, rivers which embrace the city, as the Hudson
and East rivers nug New York — how lazily they
roll into the bay, and curl about the shores and
islets, lapping and ebbing with the tides, around
Fort Eipley and Fort Sumter, and out, by the Beach
Channel, into the Atlantic Ocean ! Peep into these
nooks of myrtle and palmettoes at our feet. What
verdure on the ground — what colour in the trees !
You may have seen sweet nooks before ; but where
on earth a nest more perfect in its kind than one of
these villas on the bay, looking over Castle Pinckney
and King Street Battery, with balconies screened
by roses and palmettoes, and with oranges hanging
to the water's edge ? And then, what women pace
these walks, peep from these lattices, adorn these
balustrades ! Surely the mothers of these women
must have been the ladies painted by Lely and
Vandyke !

Yet what a fiery energy in the men and-
women ! It is a saying in Charleston ' that no
Negro or Mulatto dares to look straight into a

D-

VOL. II. L

146 WHITE CONQUEST.

gentleman's face.' How many Negresses and
Mulattaes would face one of these White damsels?
The Government is under the control of Negro
voters, and the State of South Carolina is for the
moment a Black Commonwealth, ruled, like an
Italian Republic of the Middle Ages, by a stranger.
Daniel H. Chamberlain is the name of the Ameri
can Podesta. Robert H. Gleaver, a Negro, is
Lieutenant-governor. Of the thirty-three Senators
for South Carolina, fourteen are Black. Out of a
hundred and twenty four Members of the Lower
House, no less than seventy- three are Black.
Gleaver, the Negro Lieutenant-governor, presides in
the Upper House ; Elliot, a Negro Speaker, presides
in the Lower House. Few of these senators can
write their names ; yet they aspire to fill the highest
offices in the Government. The Secretary of State
is a Negro. Offices which demand some aptitude in
reading and writing, such as those of Attorney-
general and Superintendent of Education, are left
to White men, but those of higher pay and wider
patronage are taken by the Blacks. The State Trea
surer is a Negro ; the Adjutant and Inspector-general
is a Negro. Chief-Justice Moses is a White, but

CHARLESTON. 147

his Associate-Judge, Wright of Beaufort, is a coloured
man.

Carolinian judges used to be named for life, like
English judges, and were as rarely deposed from
the bench as judges in the parent State; but this
Conservative way of dealing with the higher magis
tracy has been set aside under the Eeconstruction.
Act. A judge is now appointed for four years only,
and is seldom named a second time. His day is
short, and he must make it pay. Some of the judges
(I am told, on good authority) deal in cotton, rice,
and other produce, and not unfrequently appear
as parties to suits at law ! An ignorant Negro,
placed on the bench by party voters, has much
temptation to resist.

A Negro has not sense enough to see that office
requires some training, not to say some natural
aptitude. His only thought of office is a place
where he can sit and smoke, give saucy answers, and
receive his salary. Office was made for man, not
man for office. If you ask a Negro what he wants,
he says ' a place,' caring but little whether you
make him a jailor or a judge.

Some weeks ago a coloured man was brought to

L 2

148 WHITE CONQUEST.

me in Philadelphia, whose name was Henry Griffin ,
whose craft was door-keeping, whose desire was
legislation. A shrewd fellow, thirty-five years old,
and yet obliged to mind a door for bread, Griffin
thought the time had come for him to rise. His neigh
bours shared the public spoil — why should not he ?
Hence, to vthe amusement of his employers, he was
running as a candidate in the seventh ward of
Philadelphia.

' On which side in politics do you stand ? ' I
asked the candidate.

c Eepublican, Sah.'

'Eepublican! Then you are running against
Bardsley and Patterson, men of your own opinions,
giving your enemies, the Democrats, a chance of
slipping in?'

' Guess that's so,' he answered ; ' but we like to
have our share, and the Eepublicans cheat us every

way.'

c Indeed ! I thought they gave you liberty, and
fought for you against their brethren in the South ? '

1 Guess that was long ago. That dead and
buried. I am speaking of to-day. We coloured
people vote the Eepublican ticket. When they get

CHARLESTON 149

in, by coloured votes, they give us nothing. We
have a White Governor, a White Secretary of the
Commonwealth, a White Chief- Justice.'

' Would you like to have a Black Chief- Justice
in the seat of Daniel Agnew P '

' Well, sah, might we not have a coloured coun
cillor, a coloured letter-carrier, a coloured police
man? In New Jersey, just across the Delaware,
you see coloured police-officers and coloured magis
trates. In Pennsylvania, though we call ourselves
Eepublicans, we have no coloured men in office,
save the turnkeys in the police-yard, and these
coloured officers are required to sweep their own
rooms and whitewash their own walls ! Is that
equality ? '

Griffin is frank. Not having learned the art of
wrapping up ugly things in golden words, he tells
you that he wants to get his hands into the public
chest.

Affairs look smooth in Charleston ; smoother
than anyone would expect to find under a carpet
bag Government, a Negro Legislature, and a Federal
army.

Daniel H. Chamberlain, the Governor, is a New

150 WHITE CONQUEST.

Englander, who came to Charleston as William P.
Kellogg went to New Orleans, armed with a carpet
bag, a pleasant manner, and an eloquent tongue.
He has been long in power, and has been savagely
abused by the Conservatives, not without good
cause ; but he is now changing his policy, curbing
the excesses of his coloured friends, and listening
more and more to the White minority. Such
moderate Conservatives as Captain Walker and
George A. Trenholm, are disposed to work with
him, instead of speaking, voting, and caballing-
against him. Chamberlain has done much mischief
and is capable of doing more. An abler man than
Kellogg, he has also a finer field in South Carolina
than Kellogg has in Louisiana. Chamberlain has a
solid Negro majority at his back. He is also stronger
in the North than Kellogg ; not because people in
Boston and New York either know or like him
better than his rival, but because they have a fresher
recollection of the sins of Charleston than they have
of New Orleans. In any measures of repression he-
might choose to adopt, Chamberlain could count on
the support of Congress and the sympathy of every
city in the North. The sin of Charleston is the sin

CHARLESTON. 151

that cannot be forgiven. Here, the scheme of
Secession was planned, here the first insult was
offered to the National flag. Thousands and tens-
of thousands in the North believe that the city
should have been burnt to the ground, that her
wharves and docks should have been destroyed,
that her channels should have been choked up, and
that her people should have been scattered over the
earth.

In treating with a man who represents so much
power and passion, the Conservatives see the need
for prudent act and reconciling speech. Like other
strangers, Chamberlain is open to the softer influences
of society. He likes to sit at good men's feasts and
bask in the smiles of well-born women. A podesta
in Yerona or Ferrari, seldom, if ever, stood beyond
the reach of social courtesies : and the podesta of
South Carolina shows a disposition to respond, so far
as he can meet these White advances without fear of
estranging his coloured friends.

' Things are now going well with you ? ' we ask
a staunch Conservative.

' So, so. We wait and bear, for time is working
on our side. Chamberlain, though a stranger, like

152 WHITE CONQUEST.

Kellogg in Louisiana, is something of a gentleman.
Though we dislike his origin, as well as his policy,
we can work with him for the public good.'

Business, our Consul tells me, is regaining some
thing of the old activity, but not in the old languid
and lofty ways. Young men are bringing in new
energies ; young men who have been trained in
New York and Chicago. They attend to what they
are about, and fag in wharf and counting-house
from dawn till dusk. Such men get on.

In reading-rooms and clubs we hear the same
report. Charleston, by her precipitate action,
brought about the Civil War. No port had more to
lose, no port has lost so much. Her pride is deeply
galled, yet she is trying, in a spirit of self-denial, to
forget her present miseries, undo her past offences,
and prepare a better future.

6 Tell me what good there is in playing at Demo
cracy,' exclaims a cotton-planter, as we sit in the
club window, talking of the prospects of South
Carolina. ' No use. Our branch of the American
Democracy is dead. Look at these voting lists. You
hear the lists are false ; we know the lists are false.
But here they are, with Federal officers asserting

CHARLESTON. 153

they are true. The law has given our negroes votes,
and under a republic votes are all in all. Why
strain against the rock? In 1868 we tried. What
came of all our efforts to be free ? Beaten at every
point ; routed in shame from every field ! Not
one Conservative Member was returned for Charles
ton. A third of the Assembly was white trash —
strangers, bankrupts, scalawags ; not a man in whom
our citizens had confidence got a seat. Two-thirds
were Negroes and Mulattoes, hardly any of whom
could read and write. Acting with Chamberlain,
these rascals robbed and scourged us ; but we bore
our injuries — under the muzzles of their shotted
guns — until the time for a new election came.
Taught by events, we tried another course ; not
readily rend with unity, for it is hard to bind the old
Adam in our spirits ; yet with a promise that invites
us to go on. Though we are far from having got a
Conservative Government yet in Columbia, we have
secured a White majority in the Senate, and a power
ful White minority in the Lower House. In Charles
ton county, though the Negroes count two to one, we
have conquered by our new tactics half the seats.'
' How is the conquest made ? '

154 WHITE CONQUEST.

4 By sense and science ; by the White man's
power of putting this and that together. In certain
counties we are too weak to fight. What is the use
of running seven men in Beaufort County, where
the Negroes stand at six to one, or three in George
town County, where they stand at seven to one?
Why try for eighteen seats in Charleston County,
seeing that the Negro voters stand at three to one ?
Till we can seize Fort Sumter and the Citadel, we
cannot change these voting lists. Then why not try
a compromise ? That is the question we asked
each other.'

' Yes ; and the reply.'

' Some said it was no use to try ; others believed
there was a chance. You see the Negroes have their
leaders, and these leaders want to push their way.
It is a great thing for a Negro to have a talk with
gentlemen ; and after all that has been done to set
the servile race against their old masters, Negroes
have the common feeling of attachment to the places
of their birth. Most of us thought a bargain might
be struck.'

4 You tried the scheme ? '
c Yes ; Captain Dawson, one of our" shrewdest

CHARLESTON. 155

citizens, started on a mission to the Negroes, who
received him well and listened to his words. He
told them, very truly, that White and coloured people
are afloat in one ship, and have to sink or swim with
her ; and he asked them whether they would not do
well to pull together, instead of pulling against each
other? Yes, they thought that very true. Dawson
then showed them that White men have nothing to
say against Negroes choosing their own rulers where
they have a clear majority ; but he told them that
the White men wished, for sake of the common weal,
that Negroes should choose good men. He offered,
on the part of his friends, that if the Negroes would
select good men, whether Black or White, in those
districts, the Whites would run no candidates in
opposition, a policy which would save the Negroes
much expense and trouble. They liked his message
and his manner, and, in spite of all that scalawags
and agitators urged against him, a bargain was con
cluded and was fairly carried out. A list of moder
ate Republicans has been returned, in place of a list
of strangers, bankrupts, and communists, so that, in
spite of Negro ascendancy, we have now a powerful
influence in the Legislature.'

156 WHITE CONQUEST.

Governor Chamberlain, we hear, is much- im
pressed by the success of this new policy. Working
through the Negro rather than against him has
begun to pay. Chamberlain is changing front ; for,
with his new Assembly, he could never hope to do
in Columbia what Kellogg is attempting to achieve
in New Orleans.

A case has just occurred which puts his feeling
to the test. For many months complaints have been
coining to his Cabinet of great disorders in Edge-
field county. Edgefield county lies on the Savannah
river, bordering Lincoln county in Georgia ; a
region in which the coloured people have a great
majority of souls. There is a Black militia, a Black
general, and a Black staff, as well as a Black sheriff,
a Black judge, and other Black officers in Edgefield
county. The White inhabitants are treated as a
subject race. If any White man resents an insult,
the Black militia is ordered out. ' You cannot call
out the State militia,' say the citizens : ' it's against
the Constitution ; ' but the Negro captains and
colonels in Edgefield county know nothing about
Constitutions. If a quarrel springs up between a
Black man and a White, the Negro captains order

CHARLESTON. 157

out their companies, and blood is certain to be
shed. Two years ago Governor Chamberlain de
clined to interfere. With his blandest smile, he
told his visitor that a great deal was being made
out of nothing ; while his franker secretary said
these troubles only paid the tyrants back in their
own coin.

But Governor Chamberlain is now open to
reason, and having heard fresh complaints from the
border county, he has sent a Eepublican magis
trate, Judge Mackey, to look into the facts and
report what should be done. Mackey has just
returned. This Eepublican magistrate reports, that,
contrary to an express Article in the State Con
stitution, the coloured officers in Edgefield county
have been in the constant habit of calling out their
companies, and taking part in street rows. He
lays the blame of nearly all disorder on the abuses
of Negro government. He declares that since the
days Avhen Norman barons put their iron collars
round the throats of Saxon thralls, no people speak
ing the English language have been subjected to
such gross indignities as the White inhabitants of
Edgefield county. Mackey concludes his report by

158 WHITE CONQUEST.

recommending the Governor to disarm and disband
the Negro regiments.

Chamberlain is inclined to follow this advice ;
but such a course is not to be taken without some
peril. The Negroes are now used to arms, and may
object to being disarmed. A military spirit is
abroad, and Negro mutinies are not unlikely to
occur. If Chamberlain disbands his Negro troops,
he will be forced to lean more and more on White
•support. Such compromises as those of Russell,
Trenholm, and Dawson, are the true secrets of states
manship ; and this Conservative success in Charleston
is a happy augury for every section of the South.

159

CHAPTEE XV.

SHADES OF COLOUR.

THE Negro is seen in Virginia under two aspects
— an ideal aspect and a practical aspect.

In the library of the Capitol stands a figure
called the Nation's Ward — a Negro boy, in all the
freshness of his youth and all the impotence of his
race. The Negro type is softened, but not into that
of the African Sibyl, in which Story has enchanted
into stone the sadness and pathos of a servile people.
In the nation's ward, the face is rich in sunshine, and
the figure ripples over with animal vivacity. The
eyes seem lifted up in search of light. Free, and
conscious of his freedom, the Negro youth is still
perplexed. What shall he do with his great gift ?
Virile and plucky, strong to labour and quick to
learn, he yet requires to see his way. Such is your
ideal picture of the Negro child.

In the shop windows of Eichmond appears a

160 WHITE CONQUEST.

version of the same figure treated by another artist
The sun is no ideal etcher. A lens has caught the
Negro as he is ; sitting in the sideway of a builder's
yard, abutting on the street, among a litter of chips
and dirt. The yard wants cleansing, and the darky
has been set to brush it up, but the seducing sun
shine is too much for him. No Negro likes to
work, and every Negro likes to loll and doze. In
stead of sweeping out the yard, Sam has dropped
among the chips and dirt. He trifles with the
handle of his broom, and bends his cheek into his
palm, and passes happily into the land of dreams.
He wants no light to see his way. He only seeks to
be left alone, that he may close his eyes, and let the
sunshine burn into his back and feet. Such is your
practical picture of the Negro imp.

' Guess you'll find most of our national wards
asleep, like Sam,' laughs a friend. Some specimens
of a class of Negroes who can hold their own, are
found along the James Eiver. We hear of men
who, leaving the towns with all their vices, have
taken bits of ground, and, after many struggles,
have begun to make money, and to put their savings
into farms. Several Negroes on the James Eiver

SHADES OF COLOUR. 161

have become small farmers, chiefly on the tobacco
lands. Tobacco is a paying crop. These coloured
people send their boys to school. Mulattoes have
taken honours in American Universities and entered
into liberal professions with a prospect of success.
All these things count for good. It is a happy
sign that such careers are open. When last in Bich-
mond, I remember the surprise expressed in a
drawing-room on my remark that on the day of my
own call to the bar a Negro from Jamaica was also
called.

c You admit a Negro into the Society of the Inner
Temple ! ' cried a lady of the First Families.

' Yes, and by the accident of keeping terms, this
Negro stood at the head of our list and answered
for us when the benchers drank our healths.'

' But were you not ashamed ? '

'Ashamed of what? This Negro was an ex
cellent scholar and a polished gentleman. He made
a speech of which the cleverest fellow in our com
pany might have felt proud/

' Still, he was a Negro ! '

' Yes, madam ; one knew that as the lady said
she knew Greek — by sight ; but, though we are

VOL. II. M

162 WHITE CONQUEST.

said to practise the black art, our constitutions have
nothing to say about the colour of a lawyer's skin.'

A coloured man can now be called to the
Virginia bar.

But the examples of such calling are so few as
to appear like special wonders. As a rule, the
Negro is a toiler of the earth, content to be a toiler
of the earth. He hardly cares to rise. He has no
stinging wants. If not a waiter in the house, he is
a worker in the field. In either case his labour is
worth a fifth part of similar labour by a White
man ; yet his food of squash and green-corn is
cheap, while he can live on the rewards of his un
skilful and uncertain toil. He understands the
value of a dollar ; it will buy him grapes and bacon,
beans, whisky, and tobacco ; but he cannot see the
value of a second and third dollar, since he can do
no more than eat, drink, chew, and smoke all day.
The morrow is the future ; and a Negro's life is in
the passing hour. One thing only in the future
weighs sufficiently on a Negro's mind to shape his
action. He is very anxious about his funeral.

'What makes us poor,' says Bill, the waiter
in my room, ' is de expens ob buryin' us.' The

SHADES OF COLOUR. 163

money spent on a Negro's funeral would keep his
family for a couple of years.

'A fren' ob mine die yesterday,' says Bill ; ' dey
bury him dis afternoon, and make much funeral.'

' Are you going to see the last of him ? '

' No, sir, I am not in his society.'

' What society do you speak of ? '

4 De buryin' society. Ebery culled person is a
member of two or three societies. He pay much
money. When he die, dey have all big sight.'

In walking through Jackson's Ward towards the
open country, for a peep at the picturesque ravines
which surround the city and give it some rough
resemblance to Jerusalem, we drop down a slope,
leap over a stream, and are beginning to mount a
second slope, when we are startled by a sob and
moan that might have floated from the Temple wall.
We turn to see the cause. Above us, on the height,
is a cemetery with a few white posts and stones,
and near the edge of this grassy slope stand a group
of Negro women, sobbing at their utmost voice,
while a Negro minister is screaming out texts, and
four or five lusty Negroes are brandishing spades
and shovelling earth. Before we reach the plateau,

M2

1 64 WHITE CONQUEST.

their rite is over and the grave filled up, but as.
the mourners file away another group arrives ; a
handsome hearse, with glass sides, showing a coffin
which in England would be that of a prince, followed
by eight coaches, each drawn by a pair of handsome
black horses, and accompanied by a dozen men in
uniform, with eagles and furled banners.

' Who is this dead man ? ' I ask a Negro loafer.

6 Guess dat Mose Crump ? '

' And who is Mose Crump ? '

* Him labourer.'

' A field labourer ? '

' Guess dat ar.'

The horses prance and tear through the rough
ground, and with a vast amount of noise and show,
the coffin is brought to the hole in which it is to be
cast — not a vault, hardly a trench — and here with
furled banner, outspread eagles, and crash of music,
Mose Crump is laid down. The family are all
present — men and women, boys and girls. The
groans and sighs are loud, but the Negro minister
contrives to drown the voices of everyone save an
old woman, who, with yearning pathos, sobs and
screams : ' I nebber see my son, I nebber see my son

SHADES OF COLOUR. 165

no more ! ' The preacher tries to storm her down.
' You go your ways ; you go and lib like him ; den
you see your son again ! ' The Black Rachel weeps
and yells, refusing to be comforted, even by a
minister of her own. When the men in uniform
seize their shovels and begin to fill the grave, chant
ing a chorus like that sung bv sailors as they haul

O D «/ J

in ropes, the old woman cries still louder : ' No, I
nebber see my son, I nebber see my son no more ! '
Poor soul, she knows the bitterness of her heart.

The younger people laugh and cry by turns,
and when the grave is filled in, they scatter into
groups, chat with their friends, and get into their
coaches and ride away, passing through crowds of
Negroes and Mulattaes dressed in blue shawls and
pink bonnets, conscious that they make a big sight,
and highly pleased that two strange gentlemen are
looking on.

Mose Crump is left alone : a little soil above
his head, without a stone to mark his grave. His
family are also left alone, with little bread and few
sweet-potatoes in their pantry, and without the
father's labouring hands. The cost of that funeral
would have fed the little Crumps for years to come.

1 66 WHITE CONQUEST.

To train a negro to the habit of taking care of
himself, requires much time. Long used to leaning
on the White man, he finds it hard to stand alone.
In many cases he understands personal freedom
as the liberty of idleness. What, in his eyes, was
the chief distinction of a White? Immunity from
labour. A White man never put his hand to spade
or plough. A friend of mine, who planted cotton
on a large scale in Alabama, one day asked his
White overseer to lend a hand to something needing
to be done. The man refused. ' No, sir,' he
answered, with a jerk, 'Guess I won't; for fifteen
years I never do anything but oversee.' His right
had been defined by usage, and my friend the
planter had to put his shoulder to the wheel. It is
the old, old story of the Magyar Prince who
cleaned his own boots ; of the Castilian queen who
perished at the fire ; of the English Governor-general
who cooked his own rice. The Negro notion of
liberty is the faculty of standing by and looking on.
while others toil and spin. He always saw the
White man standing by and looking on. Why
should not he ?

Poor fellow, he is not yet wise enough to read

SHADES OF COLOUR. 167

the Divine injunction that he who will not labour
shall not eat. The Negro is a little world of
whims and fancies, ecstacies and superstitions. He
imagines life a comedy and a masquerade, in which
the parts and costumes are dispensed by chance. If
he could only change the parts and dresses ! For
the moment he is full of this idea. Fame and for
tune, power and splendour, seem to him the fruit of
a gigantic lottery called Public Life, and he is
haunted by the notion that if he could only invest
his fortunes in that lottery he might live in a fine
house and have squash and sweet potato, whisky and
tobacco, all his days. Hence, he is hot with politics,
to the neglect of everything he has to do. Shall he

O J O

come to the front ? Yes, stand in front. To have
a thousand faces turned towards him, to hear a
thousand voices ring out : ' Bravo ! — dat is good, —
hock, hi, hi, hee ! ' is what he wants.

1 68 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE XVI.

COLOURED PEOPLE AT SCHOOL.

AT the time of my first visit to Virginia, the
Negro had been free about a year, and in the fresh
ness of his freedom showed a spring and go that
hinted, not at physical vitality only, but at a power of
moral progress. Sam, the waiter, sat up half his
night over book and slate. Harry, the labourer,
squatted on a waste, and wrung his maize and onion
from a blasted heath. Sam walked with me one
evening to a score of Negro cabins, where, in
dens and garrets, we saw woolly pates bending over
desks and dirty fingers pointing at A B C. No
city in Virginia had then a public school for either
White or Black ; but the enfranchised Negro seemed
resolved to have such schools as he could make,
ilis schools were small and rude ; but the beginnings
of many great things have been small and rude.
What seemed of consequence was the impulse.

COLOURED PEOPLE AT SCHOOL. 169

White people were then opposed to State schools.
The principle was bad. State schools were Yankee
notions ; only fit for regions like New England, with
no ancient gentry and no servile population. First
Families were above that sort of thing. A State
school meant equality, and if the war had put an
end to servitude, equality was still a long way off.
The Negro seemed ready to seize an opportunity
neglected by the Whites.

That impulse was not sustained long enough for
fruit. It was a spark — a flash — and it is gone.

The Whites, grown wiser by events, have
founded public schools in every district of the
country ; schools for White children as well as
schools for Black. These schools are free, well built,
ably conducted. A father can have his child
taught to read and write for nothing ; but in a state
of freedom, he may either set his child to learn or
not. Hardly any White parents neglect to send their
child to school, for the necessity of education has
been forced on their attention by loss of fortune,
fame and power. It is otherwise among the coloured
folk. Two Negro parents out of three neglect to
send their little folks to school. They will not take

1 70 WHITE CONQUEST.

the pains. School hours are fixed, school habits
orderly ; and Negroes find it hard to keep fixed
hours and to maintain order in their cabins. If
their imps go to school, they must be called betimes,
and must be washed and combed. Clothes need
making and mending. Meals must be cooked, and
the youngsters must be sent out early. Children
bring home slates and books, and want a quiet
corner for their evening tasks. But where, in the

O '

filthy cabins of Jackson's Ward, are they to find quiet
nooks ? And then, though schools are free, books
and slates cost money ; and the dollars spent on
books and slates are so much taken from the margin
left for drams and quids. Improvident fathers find
the cost of school a burthen ; indolent mothers find
the worry of school a great addition to their cares.
Such parents sicken at the efforts to be made ; a
strain from dawn to dusk ; a self-denial from year to
year ; and, in their indolent selfishness, they let their
children loiter in the lanes, and wallow in the styes.
The schools are separate : White children in one
set, coloured children in another set. They never
mix the two classes. Teachers assure you they
could not mix the classes if they tried.

COLOURED PEOPLE AT SCHOOL. 171

Most of the pupils in coloured schools are of
Mixed blood ; some of them almost White. No
sight can well be sadder than to see these little ones
sitting on the Negro benches, and to hear their
never failing ' No,' in answer to the query whether
they have a father? Hapless waifs ! In five or six
coloured schools which wre have visited to-day we
notice boys and girls as white as any children in
New York. You see at once the facts — White
father, Quadroon or Octoroon mother — lawless love,
abandoned mistress, nameless child.

c Why not allow these children to attend White
schools ? '

6 We cannot,' answers the inspector. ' Colour
counts for little, family for much. In the case of
every child the facts are known ; and if White
people were silent, the Negroes would make a row.
Negroes who have no dislike to Whites, as such,
detest Hybrids and Quadroons ; for Hybrids and
Quadroons not only despise the Negroes but remind
them how many of their young women run after
White men rather than Black.'

' One remembers, in Hayti, that the full-blooded

•572 WHITE CONQUEST.

'"Negroes, fresli from Africa, made their fiercest
slaughter among the Mixed breeds.'

' It is always so,' replies the experienced officer.
6 In Negro rows, a difference in the shade makes all
the difference in the fight. Nearer in blood, sharper
in feud.'

In one of the Negro schools we find a girl of
nine or ten, with one of the most striking faces I
have ever seen. White skin, brown rippling hair,
and rosy cheeks are lighted with a pair of blue and
wondering eyes. The fair young lady sitting at the
teacher's desk is not so fair as this ' coloured ' child.

' What a sweet face ! Is this girl a Negress,
and excluded from an ordinary school ? '

' Yes ; her face is apt to take one in. Yet this
fair child is the daughter of a Quadroon of bad
character, who lives among her people in Jackson
Ward. Everybody knows the child's mother; no
one knows her father. Yes, her case is sad, but
what are we to do ? The Negroes claim her. How
are we to separate a mother from her child ? '

' But surely these white-looking lads will not
remain among the coloured folk when they grow
up?'

COLOURED PEOPLE AT SCHOOL. 173

' Not all. The bolder lads will run away. It
will be hard for them to hide the stain of blood ;
but some are fair enough to pass, if they can
only get away to distant parts. In London or in
Sydney they might never be unmasked. In America
they are sure to fail. Our people are suspicious,
and the Negroes keep an eye on fellows who try
to dodge. You cannot get beyond their reach.
In every town of Canada and the United States,
the Mulattoes are a separate class, with signs and
tokens of their own. If any one of their com
munity tries to get among the Whites they hunt him
down with merciless glee.'

'And girls?'

' Girls have a harder time than boys, for they
have fewer trades to work at, and they cannot earn
as much money as men. A man who saves money
may be off; but women seldom save enough to
pay their fares. And, then, the jealousy is fiercer
where a woman is concerned. Negresses watch
Quadroons with an unsleeping ire.'

Gifted with such beauty as hers, will this poor
little Octoroon, now opening her blue eyes at the
fair teacher, stay in the purlieus of Eichmond, where

174 WHITE CONQUEST.

her mother lives ? If so, will she be too proud of her
White face to marry a Black mate ; and yet too low
in her connections to win a White one ? Will she
remain deaf to honest love, yet open to irregular
proposals? Who. considering how likely all these
things are to happen, will not hope that she may fly ?
Yet, if she flies, what then ? Suppose she prove to
be as quick in brain as she is fair in face. She may
become an artist, singer, actress, authoress. She
may conceal her birth of shame, her youth of
misery, her taint of blood. She may assume a
false name, assert a false nationality. She may be
Mademoiselle This, Seiiora That ; yet fear will dog
her steps. At every whisper she will faint, at every
exclamation start. Imagine her a queen of song,
a popular novelist ; with crowds of worshippers at
her feet, one favoured more than others ; when
some school-mate from Virginia comes across her
path. 'Dat 'oman buffal! Hi, hi, hee ! Dat
'oman ole gal — dat 'oman nigger wench ! '

175

CHAPTER XVII.

VIRGINIA.

IN English eyes Virginia is a pleasant country, with
an aspect that recalls the home-like hills in Kent. Her
air is soft, her climate fine. How green her fields,
how fresh her streams, how bright her uplands !
Fronting the sea, she faces all the world, and every
port where trade is carried on lies open to her enter
prise. Deep friths indent her shores and tides flow
up her valleys. She is everywhere a water power.
A thousand sparkling rills drop down her wooded
heights. Her dells are cool with ponds and lakes,
her ravines musical with steps, cascades, and falls.
Down every hollow winds a rivulet, blessing the
soil through which it flows, and carrying seaward
the accumulating forest-trees — fuel for fire, planking
for homestead, mast and spar for ship. But she
has beauties of her own, the like of which we
English only see in dreams. A ridge of apennines

176 WHITE CONQUEST.

bulges across the country, separating the fertile She-
nandoah valley on the east from the enchanting
Winchester valley on the west. These apennines
are called the Blue Eidge, from the purple tinge
which, in the twilight after sunset, deepens into blue,
as dark as that of either Syrian sea or Grecian sky.
Virginia's sun is bright, and in his brightness con
stant through the year. Fogs are unknown, mists
seldom seen. This wealth of sunlight in the sky sheds
wealth of colour on the landscape. Skies as clear,
and streams as fresh, are found in many places ; but
the beauty of this range of mountain woods is hardly
to be matched on earth.

Groups of hills start here and there beyond the
chain of heights ; one Alp called White Top Moun
tain, lifting its head above the line that Snowdon
would attain if she were piled on the highest peak of
the Cheviot Hills. These hills are clothed with pine
and maple, oak, and chestnut, to their crowns. Their
sides are all aglow ; gold, orange, scarlet, crimson,
russet ; all the burning colours of the forest min
gling in one common flame. The glory of the falling
year is nowhere to be seen in such perfection as in
these Virginian Apennines.

VIRGINIA. 177

Drop into this garden — you feel at home. This
orchard is an English orchard ; apples, pears,
peaches, plums are all English fruit. Here is a
potato-ridge ; you pull the stalk and find it is an
Irish plant. Here, too, are things well known at
home, although not grown at home. In Surrey, these
grapes would be under glass. These melons would
not grow in an English garden ; and these pippins
and lady-apples, though often seen on English tables,
are grown on this Virginian soil. Here we have
maize ripening in one corner, tobacco in a second,
pea-nuts and sweet potatoes in a third. These roots
and fruits are homely things to us, yet homely in
a far-off way, much as roses of Sharon and lilies of
the valley are familiar to our thoughts. We draw
nigh to them and feel at home among them, yet
we recognise a sense of difference and of separation
that clothes them with poetic charm.

Caught between two fires, burnt alike by North
and South, Virginia suffered more in the civil feud
than any other State. Nine years ago, when I was
last in Eichmond, the Capitol looked down on a heap
of ruins. Main-street was gutted by fire. Masses
of the city, blown up by gunpowder, lay in heaps
VOL. ir. N

178 WHITE CONQUEST.

of charred rafters and blackened stones. A manu
facturing suburb was completely wrecked. All works
were stopped, hundreds of homes were roofless,
every one was wanting bread. In every house there
was a scowling brow, a flashing eye, a bitter tongue.
A conquering soldiery filled the streets and held
the Capitol as they are now holding the arsenal of
New Orleans. Out of Eichmond the case was not
so bad as in the city, yet the war had scarred the
country on every side ; made a desert of the Blue
Eidge, burnt up Fredericksburg, scorched the banks
of York Eiver, desolated the banks of the Eappa-
hannock, and destroyed the fields and orchards round
Petersburg. Few parts of Virginia had escaped the
ravages of war.

Virginia's suffering was sharp, but her offences
had been great and sore. To me Virginia is a
pleasant place. I like her frank men, her lovely
women. I cannot make up my mind to be harsh,
even in judging her faults ; yet I am bound to say
that the physical wreck caused by the civil war only
corresponded to the moral wreck caused by slavery.

Of all the Southern States Virginia was the worst.
She had the least excuse for slavery, and she held

VIRGINIA. 179

the largest number of men in bonds. She was the
supreme Slave State. Georgia, Louisiana, and Ala
bama had some shadow of excuse. They wanted
labour on their land — white labour, as they fancied,
was impossible ; and they could only get black labour
by purchasing the Negro. If it was bad to own
slaves, it was odious to breed them for the market.
In Virginia there was no pretence that White men
could not till the soil and reap the harvest, for the
country is one of the healthiest on the American
Continent. The air is dry. No marshes, and few
stagnant pools exist. Ague, the plague of Georgia
and Louisiana, is hardly known in Virginia. The
rainfall corresponds to that of France, the sunshine
to that of Sicily and Andaluz. A man accustomed
to no greater change from heat to cold than he may
feel in Surrey, finds the climate of Eichmond and
Winchester suit him. Winter is so mild that sheep
are left out all the year with no more food and shelter
than they get on hill-sides and in ravines.

This salubrity of the climate tempted the Virgi
nians to convert their pleasant homesteads into
breedin-rounds ; into nurseries from which the

i8o WHITE CONQUEST.

slave-markets of Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana
might be fed. Lucre tempted them.

In many Southern States the Negro race began
to fall off as soon as the African slave trade was
suppressed. The waste of life was great ; the
power of natural growth was small. Unlike the
European, a Negro has no vast and ever- widening
vital force. Left to himself he will not multiply
as Saxons multiply. But, when the Georgians
found it cheaper to buy new slaves than to take
care of old ones, Virginia gave her wealth, her
intellect, and her possessions to the service of this im
pious cause. She took to slave-breeding as a busi
ness. Slaves multiplied like hogs, and in Virginia
they were kept like hogs. They were not taught to
read and write. A man was seldom allowed to
marry. In Kentucky a planter hardly ever sold a
slave, thinking it mean, if not immoral ; and the
public feeling of his country was against the trade.
But in Virginia no such shame was felt.

Bank was her sin, and stern has been her
punishment. Like an enchantress she was taken in
her beauty and her shame, and she is laden with the
fetters, smitten by the sword, of an inflexible justice.

VIRGINIA. 181

She is humbled to the dust. The iron eats into her
flesh ; the insult breaks her heart. She is no longer
bold of brow. Thrown to the ground, her high and
scornful spirit sank into the earth like water poured
along a field of grass. For many a year to come
she will not slip those fetters from her limbs, but she
is easing herself under them, trying to feel her feet
and free her arms.

The civil war was marked by many new and
striking features, most of all in the practical results.
A wealthy aristocracy was crushed ; a vast com
munity of slaves was freed. What other war has
done so much? In servile wars, the slaves have
always suffered by defeat. No servile war succeeds.
Until the fall of Eichmond, it is doubtful whether
the sword had ever freed a single slave. Slaves rose
in Sparta and Syracuse, in Alexandria and Eome,
but they were crushed with merciless rigour. Gallic
slaves rose under Clovis, and Tartar slaves under
Alexis ; but the end of every rising was a deeper
fall, a sterner punishment, a harder rivetting of the
servile chain. From Spartacus to Pugacheff, the
leaders of servile insurrections have always failed.
The case of Toussaint 1' Overture is no exception to

1 82 WHITE CONQUEST.

the rule, for the war in Hayti was political rather
than -servile, and in the long run Toussaint failed as
Dessalines and Christophe also failed. When the
war of secession broke out, emancipation by the
sword was a new theory ; and the overthrow of a
powerful aristocracy for the benefit of their serfs
was a thing unknown.

No such upheaval of society, as we now find
along the vast regions stretching from the Potomac
to the Gulf of Mexico, is on record in any nation ;
nor after such a convulsion can one expect to see
the moral balance of society rapidly restored. We
must be patient, for we have to wait on some of the
most delicate movements of the human heart.

A man learns to hide his scars and sores ; a
woman will not learn. Women are never so heroic,
so imprudent, as in defeat. They glory in their suf
ferings, and prepare the day of their revenge. In all
these southern towns, the ladies keep alive the
memory of fights in which their brothers and their
lovers fell. You note an obelisk to some fallen
brave. Who raised that shaft? The ladies. You
observe a cairn in some deserted field. Who built
that cairn ? Ladies ; still ladies. Here in Eichmond

VIRGINIA. 183

stands a pyramid ; and the erectors of this pyramid
were ladies, ever more ladies. Men forget, women
protest.

That all these protests put the day of their
recovery back we know, and all men know ; but
how are you to argue with impulsive and imperious
politicians, who refute you with a glance, disarm
you with a smile? A lovely Maryland girl used
to make our London drawing-rooms ring with her
scorn of ' the northern scum.' You saw the tone
was false, the feeling vicious, the passion fleeting ;
but that swelling voice was in your ear, and when
you turned to her in hostile mood, a pair of flashing
eyes were on your face. What could you do but
run?

If strangers feel such pangs in dealing with these
female patriots, even when he differs from them in
opinion, how much more painful must it be for son
or brother? It is a consolation to perceive that
these Conservatives have a better and more whole
some side. If last to forget the old, women are first
to begin the new. If ladies build pyramids, they
also set the example of teaching in the public
schools.

184 WHITE CONQUEST.

Entering on a course of self-reform, Virginia is
making efforts in the one way that is likely to be
fruitful and enduring. She is educating her citizens
for a new career ; a career of freedom and industry,
in which she hopes to gain the sympathy and as
sistance of the old country. English in her heart,
she is perfectly American in her head. She thinks,
and rightly thinks, that in the beauty of her land
scape, in the fertility of her soil, in the salubrity of
her climate, she has means of drawing towards herself
the thoughts of many English families who are look
ing out for new homesteads and settlements. A
better education for her old stock, a freer opening
for new comers, are the two planks in her platform
of improvement.

The first plank comes first. Virginia has an evil
reputation in the world ; and men might hesitate ere
putting their money and their characters into the
power of such rowdies as the old Virginian drunkards,
duellists, and gamesters are reported to have been.
Some members of these classes still remain. In
article number three of the New Constitution there
is a clause condemning duellists to loss of civil rights.

VIRGINIA. 185

But is the article enforced ? I grieve to say that
public feeling is against the code.

Here are two gentlemen, Mosely and Paine, of
good position in society, gentlemen who ought to set
an example to people in Jackson Ward. They have
a personal difference, and a challenge to fight passes
between them. The authorities stand up, and talk
of visiting the offenders with civil death ; but Paine
and Mosely are the darlings of society, and social
sentiment is stronger than the law. In spite of
their duel, Mosely and Paine are still in the enjoy
ment of their rights.

In time the code will prevail ; but training in
the school and sentiment in the drawing-room must
go before concession in the club and sympathy in
the street.

1 86 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE XVIII.

AT WASHINGTON.

ON our arrival in Washington we start for the White
House to see the President. In crossing the park
we meet Secretary Fish and Secretary Bristow, and
•exchange with them the latest news from New
Orleans. The Full Committee, startled by the Sub-
Committee's report, is going South ; but no one
thinks a new enquiry will present new facts. The
thing is done: the truth is told. Yet President
Grant, though yielding to public opinion, appears to
cling to his old idea that the South should not be
left to settle their elections at the ballot-box.

Finding the President engaged, we go into the
drawing-room and spend some minutes with his
family. Mrs. Grant receives us, and presents us to
her son, Colonel Grant, and that son's wife. No
princess does the honours of her house, more affably

. AT WASHINGTON. TS/

than Mrs. Grant. She likes the White House
very much, she says, and few ladies have seen more
of it than she. 'Before we came to live here,
many of my female friends assured me it was a
hole, a wretched hole,' she rattles merrily, ; and I
whispered in their ears that if I could not get on
I would send for them — ha ! ha ! * Some critics,
in their present state of mind, would find a taint
of female Cassarism in such persiflage. Her
drawing-room window looks on a garden, at the end
of which stands the unfinished column of George
Washington, cutting the line of the Potomac, and
parting the hills of Virginia. Vanities of human
pride ! That column, which was meant to reach the
sky, is broken short. That river, which was
deemed a sure defence of the republican capital, has
been profaned by hostile fleets. Those hills, which
are so ]ovely and so fertile, have been wasted by
American fire.

6 Another deputation from the Senate,' sighs the
President, coming through a private door from his
reception-room. He looks fatigued and worried.
Dropping on a chair he puffs at his cigar, ap-

188 [WHITE CONQUEST.

parently forgetting guests and drawing-rooms, his
broad and intellectual features strained and grim.
We talk of New Orleans.

' The state of things in that section is unbear
able,' says the President, brightening up. ' Here, in
this cabinet, I have a list made out by General
Sheridan of three thousand murders and attempts at
murder in Louisiana.'

' I have seen a later list, in which the figures
count up to four thousand.'

6 Four thousand ! ' exclaims the President.
' Yes, four thousand ; and the list is growing
every hour. Nothing is easier than to make such
lists. You have only to ask for ten thousand;
Packard and Pinchback will be able to supply them
in a week.'

' You think the figures incorrect ? '
' The figures may be true enough. Violence is
common on the Gulf of Mexico, where a civilized
race is fighting with two savage races ; but the
question is — how far these murders and attempts at
murder have their sources in political passion ? '

' Why,' puts in Colonel Grant, c there were three
thousand political murders in Texas last year ; three

AT WASHINGTON. 189-

thousand murders of Negroes in a single State in one
year ! '

' That statement strikes one oddly. We have re
cently come from Texas, which we crossed from
north to south, from Red River to Galveston. On
every road we heard of crime ; a man stabbed here,
a cabin burnt there. At every drinking-crib we
heard of rows in which knives were drawn and
shots fired. Much of this crime was Negro crime.
Yet, from Red River to Galveston, although the
talk ran constantly on acts of violence, we never
once heard these acts of violence attributed to poli
tical causes. Books and journals show you that the
crime in Texas is not so much White on Black, or
Black on White, as Black on Black.'

4 1 don't read books nor journals either,' says the
President moodily, c except the clippings made for
me by Babcock.' General Babcock is the Private
Secretary.

This saying of the President is no joke.
General Grant never opens a book or peeps into a
paper ; yet he cannot keep his eyes off caricatures of
himself. Opponents, well aware of his weakness,
sting and flout him through the eye. Here squats

190 WHITE CONQUEST.

the President in a nursery, with a wooden horse, a
paper crown, marked ' Cassar,' and a box of toy
bricks, which he is trying to build into a throne.
Senator Kernan, a democrat, addresses him — speak
ing for the coming host of Democrats : ' Oh, mighty
Ca3sar ! dost thou lie so low ? ' Here Uncle Sam, in
the character of a pedlar, struts into the White
House, with a coffin on his shoulder, which he tilts
against the wall. The coffin is inscribed : ' Third
Term.' Uncle Sam points to his wares, and asks the
President : ' You want a third term ? '

Great pains are taken by the President's family
to hide the coarser things from him. It is a common
pleasantry for American girls to say they peep at all
books and papers before laying them on the family
table, to see whether they are fit for older people to
read. The ladies of the White House assume these
offices for the President ; but he ferrets out the worst
attacks, and sits in front of them for hours, chewing
liis cigar in speechless rage.

4 1 am disgusted with these wasps and hornets/
he remarks, ' yet cannot help looking at them.'

Few soldiers have enjoyed the art of treating
caricatures like Fritz der Einige : ' Let everyone see

:AT WASHINGTON. 191

and speak. My people and myself understand each
other ; they say what they like, I do what I like.'

If it be true that a man is not really famous till
he is well abused, it is not the less true that a man
is never much abused till he has made himself
famous in some other way. Grant may not be,
like O'Connell, the best-abused man alive, but is
assuredly the worst- abused man in the United States.
All sorts of sins and vices are imputed to him.
According to the caricatures he is a tyrant and a
traitor, an assassin and a thief. He wants a third
term of office, he keeps a military household, he
despises civil authority. He is called Caesar in
mockery, Soulouque in earnest. Hosts of mean
offences are imputed to him — avarice, nepotism,
venality — and the comic papers bristle with insults
and assaults. In one of these prints a naughty boy,
climbing into Uncle Sam's pantry to reach some
'third term' preserve, upsets 'habeas corpus' jam,
for which, being caught in the fact, he is soundly
whipped on the back. One large cartoon, by Matt
Morgan, has the title : ' Grant's Last Blow at Louis
iana.' A handsome female figure mounts the steps
of the Capitol with a petition. Grant conies out to

192 WHITE CONQUEST.

meet her, with his two mastiffs, Phil and Belknap,
and upbraids her : ' You have dared to despise the
masters I put over you ; you have the temerity to
wish to govern yourself. I whipped you once. You
have no rights that a soldier is bound to respect.' To
which abuse Louisiana objects : ' I am a Free State.
I obey the Federal law. I am suffering for law and
peace. I merely wish to rule myself under the
constitution.' ' Constitution ! ' cries the armed ruler,
plunging his dagger into her heart, ' I am your
constitution.'

In the passion of the moment, everything good
and fine in General Grant is overlooked, even his
genius as a captain and his services in the field.
It is a great misfortune for a soldier to have won
Jiis laurels in domestic strife. One half the nation
hates him for his talent, and the second half desires
to bury him and his services in oblivion. If Naseby
and Dunbar had been fought in France instead of
in England and Scotland, Cromwell would not have
been without his statue. What German ever men
tions Waldburg? What Gaul is proud of Guise?
Yet hardly any Cavalier denied that Cromwell was
a great soldier; and an Englishman cannot hear

AT WASHINGTON. 193

without surprise and pain that the man who cap
tured Donelson, Vicksburg, and Richmond is not a
great soldier.

4 Sheridan,' says the President, returning to his
lieutenant, ' is a man of drill and order, who under
stands the South. But the public have mistaken
Sheridan, and they will not see his actions in the
proper light.' Without saying so in words, he seems
to mean that Sheridan is suffering from the general
but unjust suspicion under which his Government
lies. If so, the President is right. The odium is un
doubtedly great ; yet Grant is suffering as much for
Sheridan as Sheridan is suffering for Grant.

The Black Question, like the Eed Question, is
broader than the policy of a day, and longer than
the lives of Sheridan and Grant. Can coloured
people live in freedom? Can a Negro bear the
rough friction, the close contact, and the hot com
petition of an Anglo-Saxon? Higher races than
the African are dying in this fierce contention.
Where is the Pict, the Cymri, and the Gael?
Where, on American soil, are the Six Nations, the
Horse Indians, the Mexicans ? What facts in natural
history suggest that Negroes are exceptions to a

VOL. II. 0

194 WHITE CONQUEST.

general rule ? The strong advance, the fit survive.
Are Negroes stronger to advance, and fitter to sur
vive than Whites ?

In going to the Capitol with Senator Fowler, we
meet Tom Chester, a Negro of pure blood, from New
Orleans, whose acquaintance I made some years
since, in our salad days. Chester was a student of
the Middle Temple when I was eating mutton at the
Inner Temple. Called to the English bar, he went
to New Orleans, where he has practised ever since.
He sails to Europe now and then, and we have
met in good houses, of the revolutionary sort,
tenanted by Polish, French, and German refugees.
' Are you a Kelloggite ? '

' No ! A native of the South, I wish to live
at peace with my White neighbours. I am not
exactly a public man, for I have never sought and
never held office. I am not ashamed of my com
plexion. Many of my people are very ignorant and
very stupid. I admit the laziness, too ; but they are
such as God made them ; and, in truth, they have
fine qualities. If left alone, they would soon be on
good terms with their old masters. It is not the
Negro, as a rule, who makes the row.'

AT WASHINGTON. 195

' You mean that the carpet-baggers, men like
Kellogg and Chamberlain, make the rows ? '

' Not in our interest, but their own. These men
our friends ! You know me. In New Orleans I
have the respect of bar and bench. No advocate
objects to act with me or to oppose me in any suit.
White judges receive me. I dine with high and
low, just as I should dine in London, Paris, and
Berlin. But let me go up North, into the towns
from which these Chamberlains and Kelloggs hail.
I should not be allowed to dine at a common table
in Boston and Chicago! I tell you we shall get
on better in New Orleans when we are left alone.'

On coming from the Senate, where the Members
are still flaming out against the President's policy in
Louisiana, we meet Pinchback in the lobby.

' Cheated, sah,' he bawls at me ; ' cheated, sah.
The Senators reject my papers ! It is all dat Kellogg,
sah ! '

' Has not Governor Kellogg signed your papers
properly ? '

4 Gubnor Kellogg ! He gubnor ! Dat Kellogg
is a rascal, sah. He sign de papers all right ; put
big seal all right ; den he write a letter underground,

o 2

196 WHITE CONQUEST.

for de Eepublicans not to vote. He want to come
hisself. He neber stay in New Orleans. Sah,
Kellogg is de greatest big rascal in America ! '

'Pinch seems put out,' the Senator remarks,
6 but we must draw the line somewhere. A sound
party man, I draw a line at the penitentiary. It
may seem singular, but I object to sitting on the
next chair to a Senator who has recently come out
of jail.'

Emerging from the hall, and standing on the
marble terrace looking over the Potomac towards the
mountains of Virginia, I venture to say : ' A White
Eevival seems -to be setting in, not only in the South,
but in the North and West. Have you Eepublicans
no fear of going too far in trying to crush the
whole White population of Louisiana, Mississippi,
and South Carolina under the heels of a small
majority of Negroes and Mulattoes? '

' Yes, frankly ; we have gone too far. It was an
error ; but we seemed to have no choice. We gave
the Negroes votes in order to secure the policy of
emancipation. If all fear of a return to slavery
were gone, we should be willing to allow each State
to judge how far the franchise ought to go, and

AT WASHINGTON. 197

where it ought to stop. A common rule is good
for common cases ; but a man must be a fool, as
well as a fanatic, who insists on applying one rule to
every case. Logic is one thing, the public weal
another. We allow the people of Nevada, Oregon,
and California to refuse political rights to Asiatics.'
4 Is not that Asiatic Question your next affair ? '
'Yes : greater than the last. The Yellow
Question is more menacing to republican institutions
than the Black.'

198 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER XIX.

OUR YELLOW BROTHER .

OUR first glimpse of this Yellow brother is in the
market-place of Baltimore, the noisiest and dirtiest
spot in the United States, excepting China Town in
San Francisco, which is not regarded by Sanitary
Boards as being in the United States. Our brother is
two-fold : perhaps man and wife ; perhaps only twins.
Whether he is male and female who can say ? The
two parts of him are of one height, and wear the
same round hat and blue frock. Each part of our
Asiatic brother has the same smooth face, round chin,
dark eyebrows, matted hair, snub nose, and placid
look. Amid the din and squalor of that mart of
fish and flesh, of fruit and greenstuffs, he moves
about, himself unmoved, neither bold like a Yankee,
nor restive like an Apache, nor awkward like a
Negro, but severely stolid and observant, asking no
questions with his tongue, yet taking in every sort of

OUR YELLOW BROTHER. 199

knowledge through his eyes. Chewing his betel-nut,
he stares at stall and pen, at rack and shelf, at
fish and flesh, at fruit and herb, without a brigh
tening smile or puzzling frown ; yet when he turns
away, he wears the visage and expression of a man
who could build that stall and pen, set up that rack
and shelf, dress that fish and flesh, and sell that fruit
and greenstuff.

At night we meet him in a sham-auction room,
watching, with intentest unconcern, the cheap-jack
put up his lots of rags, cotton, paper shoes, zinc
razors, glass jewels, and shoddy skins for sale. He
never makes a bid ; but when the cheap-jack passes
off his spurious wares, mostly on poor old Negresses,
a smile of approval lights his face. Our Yellow
brother is evidently at school.

A little later in the night we find him at a
shooting-gallery ; not firing away his cents, like the
Yankees and Negroes, but looking on, and noticing
the scores. If any difference can be traced in his
impassive eyes, he seems less at home in the shooting-
gallery than in the cheap market-place and sham
auction-room. The bells ring too often. Hitting
bull's-eyes appears to pain as well as puzzle him.

200 WHITE CONQUEST.

After watching eight or nine fellows crash their
money on the iron disks, he gives his betel-nut a
turn, squirts out his red saliva, and steps into the
street, paying no more heed to the yelp of Negro
sneers behind him than an Arab pays to the bark of
his street dogs.

In Chicago, at the moment of starting for Cali
fornia, we make the acquaintance of Paul Cornell,
chief partner in the great watch factory of that city.
Cornell's watches are known in America as Bre-
guet's watches are known in Europe. From the
senior partner, who is going to San Francisco with
a view to business, we learn that Ealston's busy
brain has conceived the idea of opening a great
watch factory in San Francisco, and doing the watch
trade on a scale not yet attempted in Geneva or
Neufch&tel. The main feature of Ealston's scheme is
the employment of Yellow labour in the place of
White.

' Yellow labour,' says Cornell, ' is cheap and
good ; the men are docile and intelligent ; they never
drink, and they are easily kept in order/

'Have they any skill in making clocks and
watches ? '

OUR YELLOW BROTHER. 201

; No, not yet ; they have the trade to learn ; but
they are quick and patient. In six or eight months
a poor fellow picked up in Jackson Street will be
able to make a watch.'

A company has been formed in San Francisco,
with Cornell as president, Ealston as treasurer, and
Cox as secretary. Cornell is a patron of religious
enterprises. Ealston is a patriot, so stiff in local feel
ing that he will not have a sofa in his parlour, a pic
ture in his lobby, that is not of native origin. Cox
is a shining light among street preachers, who devotes
his Sunday energies to labour in the slums and
alleys of San Francisco. Part of a factory on Fourth
Street, now occupied by a carriage company, not far
from the Chinese quarter, has been hired and fitted
up. Tools and machinery have been sent from
Cincinnatti and New York. The whole affair looks
well.

' The climate of San Francisco,' Cornell explains
to me, ;is suitable for the watch trade. In
Chicago we have many things to overcome. Sum
mer is very hot, winter very cold. Workpeople
need warm clothes, good rooms, and costly food.
The heat and cold affect our tools and implements.

202 WHITE CONQUEST.

Fuel is scarce and dear. In California there is
neither heat to strain nor frost to chill our wheels
and levers. We can work the whole year round,
and if our business needs it we can run our
machinery night and day.'

With Piety at the prow and Patriotism at the
helm, what have the new Watch Company to fear ?

4 The laws of God to fear ! ' snaps a voice at my
side, the voice of a physician, who has lived for
many years in San Francisco, and has watched the
coming of our Yellow brethren from Hong Kong
with pained and speculative eyes.

' I have a strong aversion to this enterprise,'
he says to me in the privacy of his .state-room. ' I
am a born American, and I want to keep America
for the Americans. Few persons see so much of our
Asiatics as myself, and I can tell you, as a man of
science and of moral order, that I should be sorry
to see the population of China Town increase.
What are the Cornell Company about ? They say,
they are going to set up a new industry in San Fran
cisco. But for whom ? Not for Americans, but for
Asiatics. They are going to teach Chinese labourers
how to do the White man's work and steal the White

OUR YELLOW BROTHER. 203

man's market. Why? Because the Asiatic, living
on rice and tea, will labour for seventy-five cents, a
day, while an American, living on roast beef and
beer, asks five dollars a day! Should they suc
ceed, as Cornell thinks, the watch factories in
Chicago will be closed, two hundred skilful artizans
will be thrown on the world, Illinois will be robbed
of an artistic industry, and five or six thousand
Mongols will come over from Hong Kong, of whom
five or six hundred will find lucrative employment
on our shores ! '

As we ascend the mountains of Wyoming, we
begin to meet our Yellow brother on the track ;
here skipping nimbly as a waiter, there drudging
heavily as a hedger and ditcher ; but in every place
silent, docile, quick, and hardy. Sam shrinks
from these mountain blasts and winter snows. Good
wages tempt him to come up ; but when the icy
winds enter his soul, he prefers the squash and
sugar-cane of South Carolina to the elk and ante
lope of Wyoming. Hi Lee can live in any climate
and any country ; in Bitter Creek, as well as in
San Jose and Los Angeles ;. caring, it would seem,
for neither heat nor cold, neither drought nor rain,

204 WHITE CONQUEST.

neither good food nor bad, neither kindness nor un-
kindness, so that he can earn money and save money.
At Evanston, an eating station on the heights
above Salt Lake, we have a troop of Chinese waiters,
dressed in short white smocks like girls, having
smooth round faces like girls, and soft and nimble
ways like girls.

After passing Salt Lake we find these Asiatics
increase in number. In and out, among the valleys
at Cape Horn, Toano, Indian Creek, and Halleck,
they are settling down in hut and ranch. We find
them in Copper Canon and along the Palisades ; we
hear of them in the White Pine Country, in Moun
tain District, at Tuscarora, Cornueopeia, and Eureka.
They go anywhere, do anything. One of the race
comes up to me at Elko with a bit of paper in his
hand, on which is written 4Lee Wang, Antelope
Eanch, White Pine Country.' Lee Wang cannot
speak a word of English, yet he is going up alone
into the mining districts of Nevada, to serve an un
known master, who may treat him as a dog.
Chinese can live where other men, even Utes and
Shohones, die. It is enough for them to scrape
abandoned mines and glean exhausted fields. A

OUR YELLOW BROTHER. 205

grain of silver pays them for the toil ; a stalk of
maize rewards them for the search. They eat
dead game, which Indians will not touch. As
waiters, woodmen, navvies, miners, laundresses, they
drive off every labourer, whether male or female,
whether White or Black.

At Elko all the races on this continent meet ;
Ked men, Black men, White men, Yellow men ;
not many Eed, and fewer Black ; yet some of each.
The Whites are mostly male, the Chinese male and
female.

Elko is the capital of Elko County, and a
thousand souls are said to huddle in and out among
the railway blocks. A State University is rising in
the neighbourhood, based on the two great prin
ciples — first, that ' tuition is to be free,' and second,
' that no one is to be excluded from the class-room
on account of sex, race, or colour.' This emanci
pated city in the mountains is spread in canvas and
reared in plank, but five or six whisky-shops and
faro-banks are being raised of brick. Yon dainty
little sheds, with muslin blinds, are tenanted by
Chinese girls, and I have reason to believe that all
these Chinese girls are slaves. A centre of many

206 WHITE CONQUEST.

roads, as well as a railway depot, Elko has a
future history. Will that history be made and told
by the offspring of Mongolian slaves ?

At Sacramento a street scene shows us how the
White children of • California are being trained to
regard their Yellow brother.

' There's John ! ' shouts a boy to his playmate ;
'let's pelt him.'

The two urchins stop their play to shy pebbles
at a Mongol labourer toiling at his task, giving his
fair day's labour for his unfair day's wage. No one
appears to think these urchins wrong in pelting that
unoffending man,

' It's only John ! ' fires up the first lad, as I
catch his arm and shake the pebbles from his fist.
6 It's only John ! Don't you see it's only John? '

This habit of looking on a Yellow face as scum
and filth, has grown up with these lads from their
cradles, just as the habit of looking on a Black face
used to grow up with Georgian and Virginian lads.
Born in the Golden State, these boys have seen, since
they could see at all, their Yellow neighbours treated
like dogs — pushed, shouldered, cuffed, and kicked
by every White. At home they see their Chinese

OUR YELLOW BROTHER. 207

servant treated as a slave ; at church they hear
him branded as a pagan. Never since their birth
have they known a Chinee resent an insult and
return a blow. Where, then, is the risk of pelting
such a weak and helpless butt ?

The boy's father seems to take this view of the
affair. Banter and argument are equally thrown
away on him. John is a druge, a waif and stray,
without a public right. The child, he rather thinks,
pays John a compliment by trying to crack his
skull.

208 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER XX.

MONGOL MIGRATION.

NOTHING so strange, hardly anything so grave, has
happened in our time as this opening of a new
Asiatic problem on the field of American politics.

Time out of mind the Chinese people stayed at
home, asking for no fraternity of men, but barring
their doors in every stranger's face. Not caring for
the outer world, they sought to dwell alone, living
their own life, enjoying their own produce, obser
ving their own rites. A wall, the greatest work of
human toil, divided them from neighbours on the
west, while in the east they had no neighbours save
the winds and waves. In every Chinese port, at
every Chinese town, a barrier rose ; a wall, a gate, a
tariff, an observance ; something that kept the world
at bay. A pilgrim now and then slipped through
the toils and brought back stories from the land of
flowers. Some trader now and then corrupted an

MONGOL MIGRATION. 209

official, and exchanged the produce of one country
for another. Thus a gate was opened, here and
there, to let in opium and to fetch out tea. Yet,
taken as a whole, the countries stretching from the
Hindu Koosh to the Yellow Sea were closed against
the enterprise, sealed against the knowledge of
mankind.

A stranger might not enter and a native could
not leave the country. China was a land apart,
having no relation with the outer world. Even for
natives there were classes and societies, which for
social purposes were separated from each other like
the castes in Bengal. On every door there was a
mystery. A trader could not see his mandarin, nor
could a mandarin speak to his prince. Women
were hidden in zenanas, and a hundred rules and
rites divided class from class and man from man.
Except a member of the Eoyal House, no one could
look on the ' Son of Heaven.' Locked in his palace,
ignorant alike of men and things, surrounded by
female slaves, the ruler of one third of the human
race passed his days in drinking tea, in smoking
opium, and in fonding slaves. In his besotted pride
and ignorance, the Tartar prince regarded every one
VOL. IT. p

210 WHITE CONQUEST.

who lived outside his empire, as a dog. unfit to bask
in the light of his celestial eyes.

An English broadside smashed the gates of this
paradise of tea drinkers and opium -smokers. Through
the breach then opened by our guns the natives came
pouring forth, and ever since that day, they have
continued rushing, like the water from a mountain
lake. They pour in threads, in cataracts, in streams ;
one stream turning into Polynesia, a second stream
running to Australia, and a third stream racing
towards the Golden Gate, Who can assure us that
these streams will ever stop ?

By preference these Mongols make for California ;
first, because the voyage is cheap and easy ; second,
because the climate suits them ; third, because the
pay is higher and the market wider than they find
elsewhere. From California they go to Oregon by
sea, to Nevada, Idaho, and Montana by land. In
Utah they have found few markets, the Mormons
being as sober and laborious as themselves. Yet
even in Salt Lake City they have found a lodgment.
They arrive in shoals, and every year those shoals
expand in size. At first they entered in twos and
threes, then by tens and twenties, in a while by

MONGOL MIGRATION. 211

hundreds and thousands. Now they are coming by
tens of thousands.

The entry of these Asiatic hordes into America
has been so silent, and their presence in the land
has proved so useful, that the graver aspects of the
case, though seen by men of science, have never yet
been faced by politicians. A thinker here and there
has asked himself — how this invasion of barbarians
will affect the European races in America ? But he
has shrunk appalled from his own query as the
Yellow Spectre rose before his mind.

Five great facts are plainly visible, and the con
sequences of these five great facts are obvious to
every thinker :

1. China is the next neighbour of California on
her western face ; the ports of Canton, Mng-po,
and Shang-hae, being those from which passengers
arrive most cheaply at the Golden Gate. A Celtic
emigrant in Cork must count on spending a hundred
dollars in money ere he lands at Hunter's Point. A
Mongol emigrant in Canton can reckon on reaching
Hunter's Point at a cost of forty-five dollars; five
of which are held by the Fook Ting Tong Society
as a reserve for carrying back his bones to Hong

p 2

212 WHITE CONQUEST.

Kong after death. An Irish settler has to brave the
roughest sea and scale the highest mountain-road on
earth, while a Mongolian from Fokien or Kiang-Su
is borne from port to port, along a summer zone, in
waters smoother than those of the Ladies' Sea. What
other proofs are needed that, when Cork and Canton
cast out any of their surplus tenants, the starving
overflow from Canton must arrive at San Francisco
in advance of that from Cork? If China has a
mouth unfed, that mouth is likely, if American ports
are open, to seek for food within the Golden Gate.

2. China, California's nearest neighbour, is the
poorest and most crowded country in the world.
Fokien, Che-kiang, and Kiang-su, are more like bee
hives and ant-hills than ordinary dwelling-places of
human beings. The swarm is altogether out of pro
portion to the width of Chinese territory and even
the fertility of Chinese soil. In mere extent of
surface, China is a country of the second rank ;
a trifle bio^er than Mexico, a trifle less than Brazil.

oO 7

She is not half so vast as Canada or the United States.
But in the number of her population she exceeds all
countries under heaven . That population is incredible.
If the inhabitants of Mexico and Brazil, Canada and

MONGOL MIGRATION. 213

the United States, were heaped together, they would
scarcely equal those of her two Eastern provinces.
Add the denizens of Europe to those of America, and
the totals will not reach the total of China. Queen
Victoria may have a larger empire, but she has fewer
subjects than the ' Son of Heaven.' Keang-Su
has twice as many persons on a square mile
as Belgium, the most thickly peopled corner of
Europe. Che-kiang is scarcely less dense than
Kiang-Su. The soil is various, and in many pro
vinces rich ; but no soil, however fertile, could
support such s warms. There must be many mouths
unfed. Are they not certain to escape by every
open port ?

3. The ports of China are not really open and
the people free. No fact in Chinese history permits
us to believe that this Chinese emigration is a volun
tary act, as Irish or Swabian emigration is a
voluntary act. Eich and happy people never quit
their homes ; learned and prosperous people seldom
quit their homes. In almost every case, they are
the indigent and thriftless members of a family
who seek for settlements on a foreign soil. But
when the ports are open and the act is free, there is

214 WHITE CONQUEST.

a chance that men of some good qualities may
come out. Boughs of all kinds have come to San
Francisco ; yet the settlers from Europe, as a rule,
have not belonged to the criminal class. How
stands the great account with China? Has an
American statesman any guarantee that the Chinese
now coming in from Hong-Kong are not all, or
nearly all, rebels, paupers, prostitutes, murderers, and
slaves ? There is but too much reason for suspicion.
All the females, it is known, are slaves ; professional
harlots in their own country, bought in Canton by
slave-dealers, and sent to San Francisco by these
slave-owners, with the avowed object of living in
this country a life of shame. The males, whether
refuse of the prisons or of the streets, belong as a
rule to the same order as this refuse of the stews.
It is a question, not yet answered, whether China
is not pouring out her worst convicts into Cali
fornia, much as England used to pour her worst
convicts into Botany Bay ?

4. These Mongols come in swarms. Now, the
American theory of public right and order is that all
authority passes to the swarm. ' All men are free
and equal.' Every one has the same right, the same

MONGOL MIGRATION. 215

vote. Majorities decide. ' The voice of the people
is the voice of God.' From the decisions of a
majority there is no appeal. In that universal and
ideal republic which is the dream of French socialists
and Italian patriots, we should all be subject to the
swarm. Luckily the new theory of governing by
swarms is limited by the yet newer doctrine of
grouping in nationalities. If numbers only were
to tell, Kiang-Su would exercise more in
fluence on events than either France or Italy. If
numbers were to rule, as in a Universal Republic
they should rule, the pig-tails of the Five Provinces
alone would outweigh the genius of England,
Germany, and the United States. Are the European
settlers in America prepared to join hands with the
Asiatic ? Living on the edge of China, gazing over
the Pacific Ocean into California, stand a third of
the whole human race. In arms these Mongols
may be met and crushed, but how are such enor
mous numbers to be dealt with in a ballot-box ?

5. These Asiatics hurt the European settlers, not
only in faith and morals, in law and literature,
but in the lower regions of animal life. In any
district where they have a majority they may carry

216 WHITE CONQUEST.

on schools and colleges on Asiatic rather than
American lines. A Mongol has no love of physical
science. He suspects a steam-engine, fears a
rail way- train. In place of botany and chemistry,
he teaches his pupils the three thousand cere
monies of politeness. He feels no chivalry towards
the fairer sex. He has no care for human life. Where
he gains a majority he may restore the use of
torture and extend the list of penal crimes. A slave
of ritual, he will introduce his book of rites.
His magistrates may enforce the wearing of pig
tails and the worship of ancestors. Accustomed to
slavery, polygamy, and infanticide in their own
country, how can Chinese magistrates be hindered
from allowing a Yellow brother to buy slaves, to
marry several wives, and drown unwelcome babes ?
A California!! thinker sees that the Mongol
question in America is — Shall European civilization
or Asiatic barbarism prevail on the Pacific Slope ?

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CHINESE LEGEND.

THE Chinese legend current in San Francisco is a
little wild ; making the Chinese in America a mere
gang of bondsmen, owned by the Six Companies,
and governed by an Asiatic Vehm Gericht, Grand
Lodge or Council of Ten, who wield a secret and
mysterious power, which neither male nor female
can escape.

Feelin<? some doubt as to the truth of this

o

Chinese legend, taken as a whole, we seek for
light among persons who are likely to have
ferretted out the facts — officers of police and
ministers of religion ; but for several weeks we
search in vain. The Chinese legend is in books and
magazines, and no one cares to ask his neighbour
whether that current legend be true or false.

At length, by help of Consul Booker, we ap
proach the only people who have sure and perfect

218 WHITE CONQUEST.

knowledge of the facts — the upper class of resident
Chinese.

Among the small group of rich and educated
Chinese living in San Francisco, Lee Wong, a mer
chant of high standing and approved integrity,
seems to be a man more likely than any other to
give true answers to plain questions. Lee Wong
happens to lie under obligation to our excellent
Consul, for certain good offices in connection with
his business. He is willing to pay some portion
of his debt, by giving us any information we may
seek. We therefore ask him to a conference at
the Consulate. He comes at the appointed hour,
and after formal compliments we seat him in a
chair, so that the majesty of Queen Victoria's face
may beam into his Asiatic eyes.

' Will you be kind enough to tell us, Lee Wong,
about the Six Companies ? '

' Six Companies ! Your people make mistakes
about these Companies. We have, in fact, Five
Companies, not six. The body called by you the
Sixth Company is a committee of management and
arbitration, a local body, living in America, and
charged with looking after business on" the Pacific

THE CHINESE LEGEND. 219

coast. The Five Companies have their seats in
China, and are known by the localities in which
their members live. These Five Companies are —
1. MngYung; 2. Kwong Chaw; 3. Hop Wo ; 4.
Sam Yep ; 5. Yung Wo. These Five Companies
collect the emigrants, carry them to Canton and
Hong-Kong, make all arrangements for their
transport, and see them put on board the mails.
The Sixth Company (or Committee) sits in San
Francisco, where its functions are to receive the
emigrants on their arrival, and to see that all their
contracts and obligations are carried out.

' Will you explain to us these contracts arid
obligations ? '

' Yes ; but will you put yourselves in our place,
and see the truth in a good light ? The Melicans
call us heathen, but we have our own religion ; and
our religion is not, like the Melican religion, only for
those who like and only when they like. Our
religion is for while we live and after we die. So,
when the Five Companies agree to bring a man over
to California, that is one thing ; when they agree to
take his ashes back to China, that is another thing.
You see ? The agreement to bring him over is a

220 WHITE CONQUEST.

contract ; the agreement to carry his ashes back is
an obligation.'

' Are all your passengers placed under the same
kind of bond?'

' Not all. We have two classes on our lists :
first — such as come over in our debt, and under
bond to us ; second, such as pay their own fares in
Hong Kong and land in San Francisco free. We
have a contract with the first class only ; but we
have our obligations towards the second class also,
since we are bound to carry them back in case of
death.'

' Tell us how you begin your labour. Where
do you find the people to come over ? ;

' The Five Companies send their agents up and
down the provinces, both near the sea and far in
land, to tell poor people, who are pinched for rice
and tea, of the great markets which are opening for
their labour in California, Oregon, and Nevada. Of
course they talk big. Melican talk big ; Chinaman
talk bigger than Melican. These agents say the
hills are made of silver, and the rivers run with
gold. They offer help, giving passes to such persons
as care to move. They find all means of transport ;

THE CHINESE LEGEND. 221

here by road, there by river ; doing things so well
— having plenty of rich men to help — that they
bring a man to the coast in carts and boats for less
money than he could get along on foot. For five
dollars they pick him up in his village, and carry
him down to Hong-Kong. If he is poor they take
his bond for those five dollars, supplying his needs
in meat and drink, for which they take a second
bond. When he arrives in Hong-Kong, they get
his licence and secure his berth. The fare is forty-
five dollars, which money they pay, also a landing-
fee of five dollars, which is repaid by the Steam
Company to our Committee in San Francisco. These
five dollars paid by the Committee, go into the Dead
Fund.'

' Then, as a rule, each man who sails from
Hong Kong to San Francisco is not merely a pauper,
but a pledged debtor and bondman ? '

' Hum ! Chinaman is used to all that — he no
care ; he work hard and save much money. Then
he go free.'

4 How much, on an average, is the amount of his
debt when he lands ? '

' From first to last a common passenger may owe

222 WHITE CONQUEST.

his Company ninety or a hundred dollars. All this
money he will have to work out.'

' Before he becomes his own master — before he
can do as he likes ? '

' Of course, before he does as he likes, he must
redeem his bond/

' Do the Five Companies in China take his personal
bond, trusting to the Sixth Company in San Francisco
to get their money back ? '

c They take a family bond as well. In China,
every man has some one — father, uncle, brother —
who is ready to give pledges. We are not like
Melicans. Our family system makes it easy to obtain
such bonds, for every member of a family has his
place in a sacred line, ascending and descending in a
series from the first man to the last. If there be
house arid land, we take a hen on house and land,
the family giving us a mortgage and allowing us
interest at the rate of twenty-four or thirty-six per
cent.'

6 Good interest ! '

4 Yes ; it is a trade, and as a trade we make
it pay. If an emigrant has neither house nor land,
we ask the personal security of his father and

THE CHINESE LEGEND. 223

grandfather ; his ancestors being the most sacred
things a Chinese man can pledge. We charge more
interest when the security is only personal ? Yes, we
charge ten dollars a month in place of two. Yet
these securities seldom fail. Of course, we run some
risk. Our man may die; worse still, he may fall
sick ; worst of all, he may commit a crime. If sent
to jail, his work is lost. Again, his bond may turn
out bad. But every business has a lucky and un
lucky turn.'

4 A man with such a debt as you describe is
virtually a slave P '

4 In Canton, yes ; in San Francisco, no. We never
use such words. We are his masters and parents.
We receive him on landing into our two great
societies in San Francisco — the Wing Yung and the
Fook Ting long — where he is watched over in life
and death.'

' What are these great societies of Wing Yung
and Fook Ting Tong?'

Wing Yung is our living office, near the county
jail. When the ships arrive we bring our people
to Wing Yung, where we lodge them, feed them, and
hire them out. Fook Ting Tong is our Dead Office,

224 WHITE CONQUEST.

in Laurel Hill Cemetry, where we lay the ashes of
our people till they can be sent home to China.'

' Do many of your bondmen run away ? '

' They cannot run away. They have no food,
no money. They speak no English words ; they
know no Melican magistrates. Nearly all the
people in San Francisco think them bad men —
paupers, convicts, and rebels. No family will engage
a Chinaman unless we give him a character and
guarantee his conduct. So they have to stay with
us, or die in the streets. We let them out on hire,
receiving their wages, and giving them so much a
month to live on — till our debts are paid.'

6 About the second class — the men who pay their
own fares, and come on their own account— are they
on landing free from your control ? '

' Free from the Sixth Company ? '

c Yes : are they free from all control, save that
of the American courts ? '

' They pay the Company five dollars each
as a landing-fee. This fee they are compelled
to pay, because they cannot land without our
leave.'

' Then, your company have some authority over

THE CHINESE LEGEND. 225

every man who comes from Hong Kong, and lands
in this port ? '

6 We have the moral obligation to restore his
bones to China ; so we tax him five dollars on his land
ing — to be safe. Unless we give him our certificate,
the Pacific Mail Company will not let him come on
shore. That contract is made by the Five Com
panies with the Mail Company. When a passenger
has paid his fee, he is at liberty to leave his ship —
but not till he can show that he has paid this fee, in
either gold or bonds.'

'You keep an eye on him afterwards, much
as you keep an eye on your bond-servant ? '

'The same. We keep an 'eye on every one.
Who else would care about his bones ? '

' You have your own police and magistrates ? '

' We have our spies and head-men everywhere.
In San Francisco we have many spies. It is
thought a good thing to be a spy ; a bad thing to be
a ghost. A spy serves the Chinese, a ghost serves
the Melicans. By means of these spies and head
men we hear of what is going on in every house.
We know every man's name, and where he is, and
what he is about. It is our duty to fish out

VOL. II. Q

226 WHITE CONQUEST.

things. Even when a man is dead, we have to find
his bones and send them home. If not, he would
be buried and forgotten like a dog.'

' Your Company is said to wield such secret
powers that you can reach offenders in any place,
and strike them down at any moment, even under
the eyes of local magistrates. For instance, I have
heard that two of your people lived near Eeno, in
the Nevada Mountains ; that one of them broke some
rule of the Six Companies ; that his fellow received
a hint to kill him ; and that he was put away so
craftily that the crime has never yet been traced.
Can such a tale be true ? '

' Who knows ? Some Chinamen good, some
bad. Melican law make bad men worse. In Hong-
Kong if you kill a man, you will be hung, whether
you have plenty money or not. Money makes no
difference. In San Francisco, you kill a man ; if
you have plenty money, you get off. That is
not good law. Here, too, all sorts of secret
societies are allowed. In China, only bad men
enter into Masonic lodges ; rogues and rebels,
who want to change the dynasty and destroy the
faith. These secret societies are all put down by

THE CHINESE LEGEND. 227

mandarins. Here, the bad Chinamen start a lodge.
We ask the Melicans to put them down. They
answer that the law allows Masonic lodges. That
bad law. The Sixth Company has to put them
down.'

' You seem to exercise the power of a Vigilant
Committee?'

4 No ; we have no secret powers. We only have
our bonds and mortgages, the sway which those who
lend money have on their debtor. All beyond is
moral force — and the two great societies of Wing
Yung and Fook Ting Tong. Chinese ourselves, we
understand our brethren ; having the same religious
rites, the same family sentiment, as the poorest fol
lowers of Tao and Buddha. Our chief authority
lies in our control of the Dead Fund. A man who
might not stop at murder, would shrink from vexing
a tribunal that may cause delay in sending back his
bones to Hong-Kong.'

' Is such delay frequent ? '

c Yes, for months and years. Except on our
certificate no steamer will carry dead men's bones,
and some of the captains will not carry them
at all.'

228 WHITE CONQUEST.

4 You have no vessels of your own ? '

' Not yet. Our trade is carried on in English
ships, and English sailors hate to carry bones. It
is no part of their religion, as of ours, to be buried
on the spot where they are born.'

' Your people all go back ? '

'Yes, all good people. Here and there some
Tartar rascals, having no regard for their ancestors,
cat their pig- tails and put on Melican clothes. Not
men, but curs. Except these dogs, all Chinese go
back — when they are dead.'

' Still you are pouring in ? '

' Yes ; more and more ; each season more than
ever. Last year five thousand ; this year thirteen
thousand ; next year twenty-five thousand — perhaps.
In Melica, plenty land, not much people ; in China,
plenty people, not much land ; so Chinamen like to
live in Melica, and go back to China when they die/

229

CHAPTEE XXII.

HEATHEN CHIXEE.

A MEEK-eyed, passive Mongol moves your heart to
pity, even while your ears are ringing with the
scorn, and tingling with the curses, heaped on him
and all his brood.

Note him at table, where his shining face, his
natty figure and his nimble movements, tell so much
from contrast with the dull tint, the shapeless contour,
and the lumpy languor of a Negro servant. Note
him in the kitchen, on the railway track, and in
the silver mine ; where he is always ready, with his
shaven face, his twisted pig-tail, and his deferential
smile, to do his best for you.

When sick of Biddy and her dirty finery, it is a
cheery sight to find Hop Ki skimming about -your
table in a smock like newly-fallen snow.

' Two knives under that smock, as innocent as he
looks,' whispers my next neighbour, a gentleman

230 WHITE CONQUEST.

who abhors the Yellow race and has an excellent
Chinese cook.

' A decent sort of lad to look at,' I observe.

' Ugh ! A Heathen Chinee ; as big a scoundrel
as the rest ; perhaps worse, if one only knew the
truth.'

4 You don't know, then ? '

' Know ! Sir, nobody can know. Why,
this fellow has no name ; he comes from no
place. How am I to guess how many people he has
stabbed, how many periods he has spent in jail ? If
I enquire, he tells me lies. The rascal says he has
never stabbed man or woman, and has never been a
day in jail. Look at the wretch as he skips round
that lady's chair. No doubt, he has two knives con
cealed under his white smock.'

' Give him the benefit of that doubt.'

' No, Sir, I will give him nothing but his wages.
So much work, so much pay ; that is the end of our
agreement. Take my word for it, that fellow in his
own country was either a thief, a rebel, or a slave.
Those Chinese won't send us their best people.
Guess they have no mandarins to spare/

A man who hears such gossip in the clubs and at

HEATHEN CHINEE. 231

the dinner-tables of San Francisco might infer that
much of the fear, hatred, and suspicion heaped on
Hop Ki falls to him, not so much because he is a
heathen, as because his face is womanish, his manner
passive, his labour cheap. Of course, some people
may have higher grounds for hating him ; but
these considerations have their bearing on the great
result.

' You like to have these Asiatic servants in your
house ? ' I ask my cynical host.

' On principle, no — in practice, yes,' that host
replies. ' Like other hussies, you can do nothing
with them, nothing without them. Out of many
evils, you are glad to choose the least. As cooks
and waiters they are worth their salt. You may
not like them, not being certain who they are,
and why they left Canton. At home, you may be
sure, they were no good. To us of the White race
they are as shadowy and irresponsible as children of
the mist. Yet if you want a dinner, you must have
a Chinaman for cook.'

6 Why not an Irish Biddy or Bavarian Traut ? '

' No, no ; no Irish Biddies and Bavarian Trauts
for me ! Look at my rascal Ki. You notice that

232 WHITE CONQUEST.

when I speak to him, I call him Ah Ki, not Hop Ki.
" Ah " means Master, and the fellow is not without
his spice of pride. To call a man " Ah " is one of
his three thousand ceremonies of politeness, and the
three thousand ceremonies of politeness are coming
into use in San Francisco. I call this chap Ah Ki
instead of raising his wages, and my politeness pays
me five dollars a month. That conies of paying
attention to the Book of Eites. Now, Hop Ki is
cheaper to me than any Biddy or Traut alive, and
acts in his vocation more like a decent sort of
wench. Ask my wife, there, whether Ki is not
the best seamstress, chamber-maid, and washer
woman she ever had to scold and pinch ? At first
you can't help laughing to see a moon-face Heathen
Chinee in your bath and dressing-room, emptying
pails and cleaning combs ; but after lugging at his
pig-tail three or four times, and finding the chignon
won't come off, your eye gets used to him and you
forget his sex.'

' Compared with Traut and Biddy, your rascal
Ki appears to be a domestic pet.'

' Well, yes — a sort of pet ; just as a polecat
might be made a pet. You see, he stays at home

HEATHEN CHINEE. . 233

of nights, and grubs his nose into the grate. He
begs no Sunday outs. When he goes to joss-house,
he comes to ask my leave, and never stays beyond
his hour. No cousins follow him to the house, and
eat my venison-pie. To do the heathen justice,
though he carries two knives under liis smock, he
has some qualities rare among White people, and
quite unknown to Irish Biddies and German Trauts.
He never drinks. He seldom sulks and storms.
He uses no offensive words ; at least, no words that
your wife and daughter understand. No doubt, the
rascal storms in his sleep and curses in his native
tongue ; sometimes I catch him at his capers ; but
the heathen is so cunning that when he is storming
and cursing at his loudest, a man who didn't know
him would think he was only lulling a baby to
sleep.'

6 Is it a fact that, like other Asiatics, the best of
these Mongols fib and pilfer ? '

' Yes, they fib and pilfer ; not, however, beyond
the margin of their class. All servants lie and steal.
Biddy pockets more, Traut bullies more, than Ki.
Then Ki has moments of remorse, which Traut and
Biddy never have. When Ki is very bad he comes

234 WHITE CONQUEST.

to me, white in the eyes, and begs me to give him
a good beating.'

' You comply ? '

6 Sure enough. He likes the stick, and so do I.
Giving Ki a beating now and then is good for both
of us. I always feel better after wallopping KL'

Mine host is not more notable for his humour
than his kindliness of heart. No man in San
Francisco has done more than he to get these
Asiatics treated fairly by the judges and police.

' You can form no notion of the impudence of
these rascals,' he continues. 'Only the other day,
in our rainy season, when the mud was fifteen
inches deep in Montgomery Street, a Yellow chap in
fur tippet and purple satin gown, was crossing over
the road by a plank, when one of our worthy
citizens, seeing how nicely he was dressed, more like
a lady than a tradesman, ran on the plank to meet
him, and, when the fellow stopped and stared, just
gave him a little jerk, and whisked him, with a
waggish laugh, into the bed of slush. Ha ha!
You should have seen the crowd of people mocking
the impudent Heathen Chinee as he picked himself
up in his soiled tippet and satin gown-! r

HEATHEN CHINEE. 235

' Did any one in the crowd stand drinks all
round ? '

' Well, no ; that Heathen Chinee rather turned
the laugh aside.'

' Ay ; how was that ? '

6 "No White man can conceive the impudence of
these Chinese. Moon-face picked himself up, shook
off a little of the mire, and, looking mildly at our
worthy citizen, curtseyed like a girl, saying to him,
in a voice that every one standing round could hear :
" You Christian : me Heathen : Good-bye." '

236 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE XXIII.

CHINESE LABOUE.

MOEE serious are the questions raised in San Fran
cisco by the Chinese knack of learning trades. The
Mongol's advent in America has brought into the
front the great struggle for existence between eaters
of beef and eaters of rice.

Living on rice, asking no luxuries beyond a
whiff of opium and a pinch of tea, John Chinaman
can toil for less money than a beef-eating fellow
who requires a solid dinner, after which he likes to
smoke his cuddy, drain his pot of beer, and top his
surfeit with a whisky-smash. John will live and
save where Pat must shrink and fall. The first
Chinese who came over were labourers, and their
first rivals were Irish navvies and hodmen. John
drove these rivals off the field, doing more work at
less cost, and pleasing his employers by his steady
doings and his silent ways. John" builds the

CHINESE LABOUR. 237

chapels, banks, hotels, and schools. No room is left
in San Francisco for the unskilled Irish peasant, and
the movement of Irish labourers towards this Slope
has ceased. In one or two hotels Pat is retained
in the dining-room ; but even in these hotels the
laundries and kitchens are occupied by Hop Ki and
Lee Sing.

' Tell me, Pat, have you any rows with these
Chinese?' I ask the servant in my room at the
Grand Hotel.

' No, Captain,' says Pat ; ' would you have me
demane meeself by jumping on a dirty thing in a
pig-tail?''

4 But he lowers the rate of wages in the docks
and yards ? '

' Bad luck to him — the skunk ! Before he
showed his dirty face in Market-street, a man could
earn his six dollars a day. Now, he gets no more
nor two. That's four dollars a day gone ; all along
of the pig-tails ! Some of the masters are no better
nor the skunks ; they say they wont pay a White
man more than double what they give a Yellow
chap. Holy Mary ! as if a Christian could live on

238 WHITE CONQUEST.

two dabs of rice, because a heathen Chinee can
starve on one I '

' You think this fall in wages owing to the
Chinaman ? '

' What else, Captain ? Why, before the brute
came in, my ould woman got her bit of washing
and ironing, enough anyhow to buy a drop of
drink ; but now the squinting villain robs the
women as well as he robs the men. If it were not
for soiling one's hands, I'd like to squash them head
and heels into the bay — just there, by Hunter's
Point.'

' You don't say, Live and let live, eh, Pat ? '

' Live ! Why, Captain, he's a heathen Chinee ;
a real heathen Chinee ! What business has the
loikes of him over here ? Is not Chinay big enough
for him?'

' Come, Pat, haven't you come over from
County Cork?'

4 That's thrue, Captain ; but then the country's
ours. We conquered it from the Injuns and the
Mexicans. Let the Chinese try to conquer it from
us ! Bedad, won't I loike to see the day when they
come out and fight — och, the heathen Chinee ! '

CHINESE LABOUR. 239

No sort of labour comes amiss to John. He
cooks your food and digs your quarry ; rocks your
cradle and feeds your cow ; mends your shed and
smelts your ore. When he has choice of work,
he settles down most readily to household tasks, but
he can turn his hand to any work ; and after once
seeing things done by others he can do them pretty
well himself.

Ho Ling came by train to San Jose ; the first
moon-face ever seen in that old Free Town. Hiring
a small shed, Ho Ling put out his sign : ' Washing
and Ironing done by Ho Ling.' Much linen may
have been lying by unwashed in San Jose ; anyhow,
Ho Ling was soon busy day and night. He sent
for Chou Ping ; but the two moon-faces, scrubbing
and squinting in their narrow room, could hardly
overtake their work. Ho Ling saved money.
When he had lived three months in San Jose, he
called a carpenter, and asked his price for setting up
ten frame shanties on a piece of ground in rear of
Main Street, Ho Ling supplying him with poles and
planks.

' For ten houses, one hundred dollars.'

240 WHITE CONQUEST.

< Muchee dollar, muchee dollar F objected Ho Ling,

' No,' replied the carpenter, ' very cheap.'

' Ten house — ten dollar — one hundred dollar ? '
asked Ho Ling.

'Yes,' returned the carpenter, not thinking of
his words.

' Then you makey, makey.'

When the carpenter set to work, seven fresh
moon-faces came down by train, and, after calling on
Ho Ling, slouched towards the back street, in which
the new Mongolian town was starting into shape.
Squatting on the ground, each moon-face twiddled
his bit of bamboo cane, chewed his morsel of betel
nuu, and watched the carpenter stake his poles and
nail his planks.

' Goodee buildee — ten dollars,' smirked Ho
Ling when the first shed was roofed.

' I'll put 'em all up for you in no time,' said the
carpenter, pocketing his coin.

' No wantee more house,' replied Ho Ling ; ' rne
makee all, me makee all.'

In his new home in America, moon-face has to
deal with new materials. In his native land bamboo
is everything : here cedar is everything. At home

CHINESE LABOUR. 241

he builds his house — floor, wall, and roof — of
bamboo. Of bamboo he makes a bridge and a fan,
a scroll and a cart, a pipe and a plough. Here he
must work in cedar, on other principles, and with
other tools. But he is quick to learn. Watching the
carpenter at San Jose with sleepy eyes, moon-face
catches up the knack of staking poles and planking
wall and roof. The carpenter swears, but he has
no redress. Ho Ling has not only built his street,
but moon-face has become an expert in the builder's
craft, and underworks his rival in every builder's
yard at San Jose. In fact, the building trade is
passing into Chinese hands.

It is the same in many other trades. The
business of cigar making is the largest separate
craft in San Francisco ; thousands of persons are
employed in smoothing, rolling, twisting the
tobacco leaves ; and this great, business has passed
entirely into Chinese hands. The boot-trade, the
woollen manufactures, and the fruit-preserving busi
ness are also mainly carried on by Chinese labour.

' You want a pair of boots ? ' asks a friend at
the Pacific Club ; c then try Yin Yung of Jackson
Street, the best bootmaker in California.'

VOL. II. R

242 WHITE CONQUEST.

' Cheapest, you mean,' sneers a gentleman in our
circle.

' Best, as well as cheapest, I assert,' replies the
first speaker.

Going up Jackson Street we look into Yin
Yung's shop, surprised to see so good a show of
work ; the boots and shoes appearing to be as neat
and strong as any you will find in rival stores, yet
marked at figures much below the ordinary price
elsewhere.

Until the other day Yin Yung had never seen an
English boot. A mandarin wears slippers, a mer
chant clatters down the street in clogs. An English
high-low was as strange a mystery to Yin Yung as a
Chinese puzzle would be to Giles Hodge. But Yin
Yung wanted rice to eat, and reading a notice in
Kearney Street that ' good hands ' were wanted by
one Aaron Isaacs, bootmaker, he applied for work ;
and, as he asked for next to nothing in the way of
wages, the worthy Israelite gave him a stool, a
mallet, and a ball of wax. A Jew has no objections
to cheap labour on the score of race and creed.
He knows, indeed, that John will learn his art and
steal his trade ; but he imagines he "can make his

CHINESE LABOUR. 243

game and bank his dollars long before that evil day
arrives. That certain crafts should pass from White
men to Yellow men is nothing to him — a Jew — a
citizen of the world. He likes a docile Mongol,
whom, if need be, he can cuff and cheat, with no
great risk of a returning blow. The Hebrew shops
are, therefore, full of Yellow-men. It is from this
connection with the Jews of San Francisco, that John
has got his droll idea that the Melicans crucified
Christ — a crime for which John Chinaman mildly
suspects and hates all Melican men !

Yin Yung drew his brethren to Isaacs's shop,
and for a year or so Isaacs drove a rattling trade
in English boots and shoes ; being able to run down
prices in Montgomery Street, and force the other
makers to employ Chinese hands. What cared the
Jew ? He lowered his rate of wages. One by one
his White men left him. Isaacs took on more
Chinese, Yin Yung being now expert enough to
instruct them in their trade. Then Yin Yung left
him also ; left him to engage in business on his own
account. To-day Yin Yung is a big man, keeping
a large shop, and having a good repute. While he
was Isaacs's thrall, he took the Hebrew's cuffs and

244 WHITE CONQUEST.

curses with a patient face, and now he pays his
debt by under-selling the Jew to his old customers
in the clubs.

Isaacs is very angry and very spiteful ; but he
has not yet been able to destroy Yin Yung.

In vain he gets more and more Chinese into his
shops. He has to teach them, and as soon as they
are taught they start as rivals in his trade. By
every effort to suppress Yin Yung he helps to make
five more Yin Yungs.

Paul Cornell's fight is raging in the watch trade,
just as Isaacs's fight is raging in the shoe-trade.
Seventy hands have corne from Chicago as his staff;
twenty-five married men with their wives and
children, and a few single men. They are engaged
for fixed periods, ranging from six months to two
years. Not a word was said to them before they
left Illinois about the company employing Chinese
hands in San Francisco. They were only told of
the lovely scenery, the temperate climate, the
abundant fruits. Money was advanced to pay their
railway fares — a heavy sum for artizans with wives
and children to procure. These fares are still owing
to the Cornell Company, so that the White men from

CHINESE LABOUR. 245

Chicago are bound to Cornell and Ealston very
much as the Yellow men from Canton are bound
to the Wing Yung and the Fook Ting Tong.

The lathes and wheels being ready, Cornell calls
in seven of his overseers, and tells them, for the first
time, that he means to use Chinese labour in his
works. The overseers protest. ' You are dis
charged,' he says. Piper, one of these seven,
overseers, complains that this notice is a great
surprise.

4 Pack up your duds and go,' says Cornell. In
time both parties get a little cooler, and the master
enters into detail.

' The Chinese, you must understand,' says Cor
nell to his White overseers, ' are mere animals ; they
cannot learn to do fine work ; they are only to
be used in common tasks. Now go and explain
these matters to the men.'

The men are no less resolute than the overseers.
4 No one,' they urge in opposition to Cornell's pro
posal, ' can draw a line between the White man and
the Yellow man. A Yellow man is quick at learn
ing things ; and, as he lives on rice and fish, he can
afford to take a lower wage. He has no family to

246 WHITE CONQUEST.

house and feed. To teach the Chinese how to make
watches, is to rob our little ones of bread.'

Both sides seem firm. ' We have your cove
nants,' says Cornell. ' Those covenants are broken/
shout the men on strike. Meetings are held. As
all the craftsmen in the town are with the strikers,
money is subscribed, and promises of support are
given. Telegrams are sent to every watch factory in
the United States, calling on the workmen to assist

' O

ill beating down this effort of three or four great
capitalists to hand over an artistic industry to Asia
tics. One committee is appointed to see the various
Trades Unions ; a second is charged to make arrange
ments for carrying the whole seventy watchmakers
back to Chicago. Yet Cornell, sustained by Ealston,
and knowing that his workmen have no money,
takes up very high ground.

' Eepay your fares and go ; like Piper, you can
pack your duds and go.'

The workmen ask for an interview with Ealston,
known to be the chief proprietor in the new com
pany, if not the first suggestor of employing Chinese
hands. Ealston consents to see them. An inter
view is held, of which a report is given in the daily

CHINESE LABOUR. 247

papers, painting the situation in a pleasant way —
that pleasant way which tells the truth in jest.

Piper advances to the front and thus addresses
the Lord of Belmont, Manager of the Bank of
California :

' Sir! We are American citizens, with families de
pendent on our labour for bread. We are skilled and
willing workers in the business of making watches.
We have been induced to come to California to aid
this new industry, in which you have risked a single
speck of your great wealth. If the work prospers,
it becomes the vocation of our lives, and the inherit
ance of our children as a place to labour ; if it fails,
you have had a little of your gold-dust blown away.
We are informed that it is your intention to employ
Chinese labour. This is not agreeable to us. We
have a prejudice against these strangers. They do not
speak our language ; their religion, manners, customs,
dress are not ours. They have no families to support.
If we educate them in our skilled pursuit, they will
soon rival us in it, and ultimately drive us from it.
Instead, therefore, of employing these people, be kind
enough to give the light labour to our wives and to
our boys and girls. Thinking it is better to give this

248 WHITE CONQUEST.

labour to our own people, we ask you respectfully to
consider our petition.'

Ealston replies :

'Individuals ! I am William C. Ealston. I own
thirty-five thousand dollars in the stock of this com
pany. We intend to manage this business in our
own way, to submit to no dictation from workmen.
We may find it expedient to employ Chinese ; if
we do, we will employ as many as we see fit. If
you think we are in your power you make a great
mistake. We will hire whatever race of men we
think best, and if you do not like it — you can leave.
We can better afford to lose a hundred thousand
dollars than submit to your dictation. We can send
to Switzerland for watchmakers. We are in no
hurry. While capital reposes, labour starves. We
can wait. I am the same Mr. Ealston who made
this same speech to the bricklayers and plasterers
on the Palace Hotel. I once discharged a clerk. I
am in earnest. However, I will be generous, and I
make this proposition : if you can get me American
girls and boys who will do as much work and do it
as well as the Chinese, I will give them the pre-

CHINESE LABOUR. 249

ference and the same pay. You may now apologize
and retire/

Dropping this tone of pleasantry, the writer adds,
with pain, if not with shame :

' The result is the Chinese are to be employed ; a
few at first, and more in time ; so that the seeds are
sown for the destruction of a profitable industry.
Another weapon of defence is taken from the hand
of free labour.'

Here, as elsewhere in California, Oregon, and
Nevada, the rice-eater is pushing the beef-eater to
the wall.

250 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTEE XXIV.

A CELESTIAL VILLAGE.

LIKE Paddy Blake and Juan Chico, Hop Lee and
Hong Chi appear to be social animals, who love to
jostle in a crowd, and lodge by preference in a
narrow court. Like many of their Irish and Mexi
can peers, they seem to delight in close alleys,
and enjoy abominable smells. When they might
camp out in the open, they burrow in the earth,
under the houses of great cities, hiding their heads
in drains and vaults, in sinks and sewers. They
make a rookery in the heart of every city they
invade. At Salt Lake they huddle round the market
place ; at Virginia they cower about the mines. In
San Francisco they have taken up their rest in the
oldest quarter. When they reach JSTew York they
will settle on Five Points ; when they arrive in
London they will occupy Seven Dials. If a great
city has a low and filthy section, the celestials sniff

A CELESTIAL VILLAGE. 251

it out, crowd into it, and by their presence make
that low and filthy place their own. It seems to
them a natural process. When they get to Borne,
they will drive the Jews out of their Ghetto ; when
they come to Naples, they will expel the lazzaroni
from their Marinella ; just as they have driven the
low Irish and the lower Mexicans from their old
haunts in San Francisco. How these lovers of dirt
would revel in the port-side of Alexandria, in the
sacred precincts of Nablous, in the leper-quarter
of Jerusalem ! Yet, in their native land, there is a
vast river population ; people who live in dhows and
junks, feeding on fish, and seldom going into towns.
In the Five Provinces these water-people are counted
by millions. Are there no water-people yet on the
Pacific Slope?

At Monterey we hear of a group of Chinese squat
ters, who have come from San Francisco, and settled
as fishermen on the bluff near Pinos Point. Scorning
to boil shirts, roast mutton, and make roads, like
their meeker comrades, these squatters near Pinos
Point neither wash nor starch, neither cook nor
serve, neither dig nor deive. They are said to be
free men, owing no money, and therefore no duty, to

252 WHITE CONQUEST.

the Five Companies. Left to their own choice, they
show no preference for city life, and give up garbage,
reek, and squalor for a lodging on the hill-side, in
the midst of wild sage, with the ocean breezes on
their roofs. They are not alone. With them are
many women and children. Living on the coast,
away from white capital and white employment,
they are said to make a homely livelihood for
their wives and families by catching and drying fish,

A colony of Asiatics, who seek neither work nor
favour from the white capitalist, but go out boldly
into nature, taking their chances in the primary
and heroic, rather than the secondary and parasitical,
struggle for existence, raises our curiosity. Unlike
the Mexican labourers, whom they are driving out
of California and Nevada, here are people who can
live without the Whites !

A trail leads off from Monterey to this Asiatic
village, going by way of Fray Junipero's Cross and
Don Eivera's Castle ; but this trail is a mere Indian
line, not made for horses, still less for wheels.
We have to trudge on foot. A walk of two miles
from the old Mexican jetty brings us to a pile of
rocks, on turning which we are in China — close to

A CELESTIAL VILLAGE. 253

a huddle of log-sheds and drying-poles — the place
snarling with dogs, and reeking with the smell of
dead fish and the fumes of joss- wood.

The first comers seem to have squatted any
where and anyhow, just as the levels tempted them,
and the logs for building purposes lay handy near
the beach. To get into the labyrinth is easy. You
follow the smell of joss- wood, kick away the dogs,
and fall over the naked urchins. But to find your
way about is like trying to undo a Chinese puzzle.
English ingenuity is unequal to the task. Here, in
your front, is a pig-sty, with the customary mess.
This wicker-frame is the hen-roost, flanked by a
puddle for the ducks and geese. What filth ! About a
hundred ricketty sheds and kennels — houses, stores,
and attics — compose this free and independent settle
ment. These sheds and kennels are so frail in build,
that some of them come down in every puff of wind
and every shower of rain. A gale might sweep the
whole colony into the bay. Happily for the settlers
this coast is a Pacific coast, where storms are almost
as rare as in the Ladies' Sea.

Four or five hundred Asiatics dwell in this
corner of America, winning from the sea and

254 WHITE CONQUEST.

shore a scanty supply of food. They take in shoals
of smelts, and pick up thousands of shell-fish.
Whaling is too hard a business, but they some
times get a haul of cod. They are fond of cuttle
fish. In summer-time, as Ah Tim, one of the settlers,
tells me, they live very well. The wood supplies
them in fuel, the bay never fails them in fish. The
little clearings near their tenements yield them
peppers, cabbages, and herbs. By drying a part
of their summer hauls they provide for the winter,
when the waters are too rough for them to brave.
The sale of some part of their dry stock gives
them money enough to buy a little tea, joss-wood,
and opium. For the rest a Chinaman can dream.
' Mee goot, opium pipe,' says Ah Tim ; ' me smoke,
me dine all-ee-same Melican mans.' A pinch of
opium makes Ah Tim a king.

Ah Tim takes us into several tenements. The
sheds are pretty much alike ; all neat and tiny ;
more like dolls' houses than the residences of human
beings. Most of them have scraps of red paper
pasted on the walls, announcements of lotteries, of
performances in the theatres, and of services in the
great joss-house of San Francisco. Every Mongol

A CELESTIAL VILLAGE. 255

in America regards San Francisco as his capital and
the great joss-house in that city as his temple.
Tim, like most of his countrymen, is pious. No
joss-house has been raised in the village near Pinos
Point, for the fishermen cannot afford the luxury
of a priest ; but in every shanty on the bluff, we
find an image of Buddha on the mantelpiece, just
as in every Basque hovel we see a cross, and in
every Euss cabin an icon of the Virgin. Poor
though he be, each Mongol keeps a small cup of
tea simmering and a few spikes of cedar-wood
burning in front of his joss. ' Man better go, all-ee-
same, says Ah Tim, ' without his rice and opium,
than leavee joss without his tea and cedar-wood,
all-ee-same, no.'

In one tenement five or six men are sitting
down to dinner — a mess of cabbage boiled in tallow,
flanked by a little fried shell-fish — each moon-face
with his chop-sticks in his hand. Before sitting
down they look to the joss, and see that his tea
is warm. On rising from their meal they light a
few cedar matches and leave them to burn out ;
but they do these acts of worship without delicacy
and reverence, showing nothing of that awe which

256 WHITE CONQUEST.

softens and subdues a Muscovite's face as he crosses
himself after meals and cries to his icon in the
corner, ' Slava Bogu ! '

Poor fellows, they have not eaten much ! JSTo
Celtic labourer, no Mexican peasant, could exist on
such food as these poor Asiatics eat. Can the
African? When two races dwell on the same soil,
the race which eats the least must drive the other
race off. The lean kine ate up the fat kine, the
thin ears of corn ate up the good ears. Watching
these fellows pick up their morsels with chop-sticks,
I remember a saying of Clarke, the Negro teacher
in Cincinnati, that his people, though able to
compete with the Celts, are not able to compete
with the Chinese. ' Let us have no Chinese,' urged
Clarke, in answer to my enquiry how far the advent
of a few thousand Chinese labourers would affect
the interests of his people in Ohio, ' let us have
no Chinese. They work for cents where we want
dollars. They live on scraps and filth. A Negro
lives on the fat of the land, and needs as much
food as any other American. John and Sam will
never be able to live in peace. John works hard
on rice and tea, and not much of either ; while Sam

A CELESTIAL VILLAGE. 257

wants roast turkey and cocktail, and a good supply
of each.' Under a system of equal laws, the Negro
would be unable to keep a footing in the labour
market of America, in presence of his thrifty, docile,
and intelligent brother of the Yellow race.

Ah Tim invites us to his shanty, where his wife
makes tea, and his two little boys roll and wallow in
the mud. Tim is a curious fellow ; cold, prosaic,
worldly ; with the hard and callous brain which
American poets have not ascribed unjustly to the
4 Heathen Chinee.' Unlike his countrymen as a
rule, Tim is a man of politics. He owes no money
to the companies. He has no reason to fear their
spies and head-men. He is a native of the soil,
and has no wish to see Canton. He wants his
rights ; he wants to have a vote ; he wants his
neighbours to have votes. Tim was the first Chinee
born in California. As a native, he has the right
of standing for any office. If he had his dues,
according to the American Constitution, he might
stand against General Grant for the Presidency.
But the White people in California set the Con
stitution at defiance, as Ah Tim believes, by pre
tending that the legal maxim, ' every man born

&

VOL. II. S

258 WHITE CONQUEST.

on the American soil is an American citizen,' only
means that every White man born on the American
soil is an American citizen.

' Are you making a formal claim of citizenship ? '
' Yes, sir. I born in Melica Land ; I marry in
Melica Land ; I live in Melica Land ; my children
born in Melica Land. Is not that all-ee-same ? '

When the American Constitution was drawn up,
the noble assertion that 'all men are born free
and equal ' was confined to the White race. A
Black man was not free. A Red man was not
an equal. But a great development has been given
to this assertion by events. A Negro born on the
soil enjoys the rights of a free citizen. Why not
a Mongol? Is the African race nobler than the
Asiatic? If Zete Fly is considered worthy of the
franchise, how can such a privilege be refused to
Ah Tim?

259

CHAPTEE XXV.

CHINA TOWN.

A SEVENTH part of the population — a seventieth part
of the surface — of San Francisco is Asiatic. All
Orientals pack closer than Europeans. A man may
see big crowds in many cities : Euss and Tartars
at Nishni-Novgorod, Copts and Armenians in Jeru-
alem, Arabs and Algerines in Cairo ; but in neither
Eussia, Syria, nor Egypt can he see such crowds
as we find packed in the Asiatic quarter of San
Francisco.

The term Asiatic quarter may suggest a separate
portion of the city, walled off from the remaining
parts like China Town in Moscow ; but the Asiatic
quarter in San Francisco is an open colony, like May
Fair in London, like the Second District in New
York. The Chinese have squatted in the very
heart of San Francisco.

Lock Sin's tea-house in Jackson Street may be

s 2

26o WHITE CONQUEST.

regarded as the heart of this new Asiatic empire in
America ; for in Jackson Street, grouped around
Lock Sin's balcony, lie the Chinese banks and
stores, the Chinese stalls and markets, the Chinese
theatres and gaming-hells ; while off this thorough
fare, to the right and left, extend the blind alleys
and nameless passages in which reside the Chinese
rogues and thieves, with their unfailing comple
ment of female slaves.

Here, bright with paper lanterns, glare the two
great tea-houses, kept by Lock Sin and Hing Kee,
in which you sip green tea and watch the dancing
girls perform their rites. Here, rich in red and
black flags, and musical with gongs and cymbals,
stands Yu He Un Choy, the royal theatre, in which
a grand historical play, a chronicle of the Ming
Dynasty, has been going on for three weeks past,
and is to run on briskly for about nine weeks yet to
come. In front of us, hardly less rich in red and
yellow paint, hardly less noisy with shawm and
tom-tom, rises Sing Ping Yuen, the new theatre, in
which lighter pieces are performed, not lasting more
than thirty or forty nights. Hereabouts lie the tan
cellars and thieves' gaming cribs, in which sallow

CHINA TOWN. 261

wretches and their hideous partners of the other
sex indulge in the lawless pleasure of staking their
bottom dollar on a domino. About these cellars
lie the opium dens, to which the gamesters come
in their frenzy, and snatch the still more fearful
joy of staking their health and manhood on a
fume of poppy-juice. Bound that corner stands
the great joss house, a large room, hung with
screens and banners, dazzling in red and gold, in
which an idol squats ; not a Mongolian god, with
flat and shaven face, and turned-up Tartar eye
brows, but a Teutonic master, with straight nose, fair
moustache, and pointed beard. Before this foreign
idol, tea-cups hiss and fuzees burn by night and day.
China Town is running over San Francisco,
spreading to east and west, to north and south. The
Asiatics have seized a good part of Dupont Street
and Kearny Street, swarmed into Pine Street, in
vaded Stockton and Pacific Streets, and got their
feet in California Street. Some houses in these
streets are owned by Mongols. When Asiatics get
their feet inside a door they drive the Europeans
out. A European cannot stand the fume and stench,
the dirt and din. Thus, shop by shop, and street

262 WHITE CONQUEST.

by street, they crawl along, a swarm of clean and
unclean things, so oddly mixed that White men
shrink from them, in fear and wrath, as from a
company of lepers. No White man likes to sleep
under the same roof with a Yellow man ; no White
woman likes to pass through Jackson Street. A
rookery and a cesspool drive off decent folk.

Let us drop into some of these houses, no fear
of lepers in our hearts, and see these Asiatics in
their homes.

Not far from Lock Sin's tea-house stands a big
edifice, first used as the Globe Hotel ; a house four
storeys high above the ground, six windows to the
front, and boasting of rooms enough for fifty guests.
Including vaults and attics there may be sixty
rooms in all. Surrounded by the Chinese rookery,
this Globe Hotel, no longer fit for decent visitors,
is let to Lee Si Tut, a rich Chinese, who re-lets his
apartments to Chinese residents of the better class —
to shopmen, waiters, clerks, and agents. Lee Si Tut
takes care to have no tenant of bad repute. A
thief, a rag-picker, a night- prowler cannot hire a
bed in his hotel. No painted women pass his door.
Tan and other lawless games are forbidden. No

CHINA TOWN. 263

wrangling or lighting is allowed within the house.
So far as order can be made by rules, order is said
to reign among Lee Si Tut's tenants ; and the Globe
Hotel in Jackson Street may be regarded as the
royal khan and summer-palace of the Chinese empire
in America.

Pass in. Oh, Lee Si Tut ! A sickening odour
greets your nostrils on his steps. A reek comes out
of every door, and dirt lies heaped on every landing-
stage. The dust of years encrusts his window-panes.
Compared with this Globe Hotel, under Lee Si
Tut, a Turkish or a Spanish prison is a desert place.
The bannisters drip ; the passages sweat, A black
and fetid slime runs down the walls. And then
what press and multitude of tenants on the stairs
and in the rooms ! Men swarm at every door, and
crowd down every stage ; each pale and melancholy
wretch vomiting his narcotic poison in your face.
A nameless horror seems to brood in every corner
of the house, for out of every corner glare the
spectral eyes of beings fevered by tan and stupefied
with drugs.

Each room, arranged for the accommodation of a
single guest, is either parted into six or seven sec-

264 WHITE CONQUEST.

tions by a string of mats, or shelved in tiers all
round the walls. Shelves are preferred, since no one
cares to pay for privacy ; and a room that will only
sleep six or seven in sections may be got to sleep a
dozen on shelves. From vault to attic, each room
is foul with smoke, and black with dirt, and choked
with men.

ISTo less than fifteen hundred ghastly creatures
find a lodging day and night in this Chinese
paradise !

Eooms crowded and unwholesome I have seen
before — at a feast in Einsiedeln, a mad-house in
Naples, an emigrant ship at Liverpool, a barrack on
the Nile — but nowhere have I seen human creatures
packed and crushed as these tenants of the Globe
Hotel are packed and crushed. Lee Si Tat lets his
house, he says, to eight hundred tenants ; which
would give him, in a house of sixty rooms, including
cellars and lofts, thirteen tenants to each chamber ;
but the rascals cheat him, he alleges, out of half his
rent, by sub-letting their shelves to men who occupy
them only half the day. Enquiry shows me that
this story of subletting and dividing the room is
strictly true. Ki Wgok lets his shelf to Li Ho ;

CHINA TOWN. 265

Ki Wgok using his shelf for twelve' hours, and
giving it up to Li Ho for the other twelve hours.
In some rooms three sets of lodgers occupy the
shelves each twenty-four hours — eight hours a-piece.

Yet those who lodge in this hotel live in a light
and roomy palace by the side of those who live
in the labyrinth of courts and styes, yards and
entries, lying round Bartlett Alley. Here some of
the first White settlers in San Francisco threw up
their hives. The ground is undrained. The log
shanties were run up hastily and cheaply ; and in
these fever-haunted hovels, rotten with age, putrid
with filth, overrun with vermin, the masses of
Mongolians make their home. They creep into
vaults, they climb into eaves, they burrow in the
earth. In holes unfit for dogs, you may discover
ten or twelve wasted creatures, sprawling on shelves,
staring into space, and trying to smoke themselves
into the opium- dreamer's paradise.

Worse still, if in the ' lowest depth ' there can
be a ' deeper still,' is the thieves' quarter ; a district
running in and out of more respectable quarters
with a rare indifference as to social forms. In the
thieves' quarter it is well to have a guide and escort,

266 WHITE CONQUEST.

for the Chinese criminal has curious ways, and your
ramble in his purlieus should be made at night.

All round Bartlett Alley lie the thieves' yards and
cribs ; foul attics, falling balconies, underground
kennels ; with a few spikes of joss- wood burning at
every door. Rags rot on the ground and garbage
poisons the air. Slush squirts at you from under
every plank, and where the planks fail you, the earth
appears to be nothing but a running sore. Rag-
shops and receiving-houses hide in old pits and
hollows under the plank floors. In all these
damp and loathsome holes a swarm of Asiatics
wallow in the filth, their pale and ghastly faces
rendered visible by the flicker of a reeking lamp.
Pah !

Fear lurks in every Mongol eye, and desperation
glowers from every Mongol face. In passing from
yard to yard you catch the slam of doors, the shot
of bolts, and feel by instinct that every ruffian stand
ing behind these planks, alarmed by strange foot
steps and loud voices in the dead of night, is listening
at his door, with hatchet raised to strike or rifle
poised to fire.

CHINA TOWN. 267

{ Open the door ! ' cries your guide, in a peremp
tory tone, stopping in front of a log cabin — ' open
the door ! '

4 You foolee me ? You foolee me ? '

' No, no. Open the door ! '

The voice is recognised within ; the door is
slowly opened, and you peep into the crib ; a cup
board as to size, but occupied by five or six men
and women. Heaps of stolen goods are on the
floor ; but neither blade nor gun is visible. At
another crib we are repulsed. To the enquiry
' How ? you foolee inc ? ' we answer, as before,
' No, no ; ' but, instead of seeing the door open,
we catch a rapid exchange of whispers inside.

4 Go ; you not foolee me ! ' cries a voice, accom
panied by the click of a rifle.

4 Dip and slide,' whispers our companion, and
we instantly dip and slide.

In Stout's Alley, and in the yards around this
sink of squalor and iniquity, lodge the partners of
these thieves and murderers — the female slaves.

Let us get out into the open streets !

' You have now seen a little of our Chinese

268 WHITE CONQUEST.

quarter,' says my companion, as we enter Lock Sin's
tea-house about two o'clock, and order a refreshing
cup.

' What you have seen in San Francisco you may
see in Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, and other
towns. Wherever John plants his foot, he builds a
China Town, and peoples it with harlots, criminals,
and slaves. We get some very cheap labour, and
our financiers say they need cheap labour ' to de
velop the country.' What think you of the price
we have to pay for our development ? '

While we are sipping tea on Lock Sin's balcony,
a yell comes up from the street below. A Chinese
fight is on. Ah King, a Chinese scamp, employed
by the city officers, and, in the slang of his
Asiatic countrymen, such a spy is called a
ghost. Of late this ghost has been too busy, his
celestial countrymen think, even for a paid spy ; and
two Asiatics, who have just come out of jail, are
setting on him, one moon-face with a hatchet, the
second moon-face with a knife. From every door in
the street swarms out a crowd, and in an instant
fifty Chinese lanterns heave and drop along the flags.

' Excuse me ! ' says my escort, and before I can

CHINA TOWN. 269

reply, he is gone from my side. King vanishes — like
a ghost. Moon-face with the knife escapes, just as
my escort swoops into the murderous circle ; but
the fellow with the hatchet is arrested on the spot
and carried to the city ward. His weapon, when
examined, proves to be a long blade, sheathed in a
layer of fine cloth, so that, in case of a fatal plunge,
the blood might have been at once removed, and
the stainless knife replaced under the white smock,
as clean and innocent in appearance as the soft-eyed
Asiatic who had plunged it into his neighbour's
heart !

270 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER XXVI.

YELLOW AGONY.

' AT length ! ' exclaims a Senator in Sacramento,
laying down his copy of the President's new Message
to Congress, in which there is a short paragraph
devoted to the Chinese immigration. ' Our master
in the White House has spared one moment from
the contemplation of his Black Agony on the Gulf to
a consideration of our Yellow Agony on the Slope ! '

No one will say that President Grant has spoken
either too soon or in too loud a voice. Opinion
runs the other way. In Washington men may
talk ; in Sacramento they must act. The Mongol
invaders have put republican principles to a strain
which they were never meant to bear, and under
this burthen, republican principles and institutions
have broken down.

Face to face with a gigantic evil, the Californians
have passed a dozen laws in self-defence ; and these

YELLOW AGONY. 271

defensive laws of California violate the most sacred
principles embodied in the common Constitution of
the United States!

The American Constitution opens American
ports to all the world ; the laws of California limit
and control the entry of Asiatics into San Francisco.
The American Connstitution gives to every man
who lands a right of citizenship on easy terms ; the
laws of California deny a Chinese immigrant the
right of citizenship on any terms.

Under the new conditions created by the influx
of these Asiatics, San Francisco has ceased to be a
free port in the sense in which New York is a free
port. New York is open : San Francisco is not
open. If he lands in New York a Mongol may be
naturalized in a year ; but if he lands in San Francisco
a Mongol cannot be naturalized in twenty years.
This conflict of principles leads to much confusion
in practice. No one in Oregon, California) and
Nevada, can be sure of what is legal or illegal.
A Court, administering the local law, rules one
thing ; a second Court, administering the general
law, rules another thing. They clash alike in
maxims, methods, and results.

272 WHITE CONQUEST.

A case occurred some weeks ago. In the belief
that a certain vessel coming from Hong-Kong was
laden with paupers, convicts, and rebels, transported
from the country by sagacious mandarins, the authori
ties of San Francisco tried to send these undesirable
settlers back to China. Taking the mail steamer in
charge, they prevented either man or woman from
landing, and required the company to carry their
cargo back to Hong-Kong. The company refused.
The San Francisco courts affirmed the right of
the mayor and sheriffs to reject this cargo : but
they were overruled by the Circuit Courts, acting
in the name, interpreting the principles, of the
United States.

Nearly every woman who obtains a licence to leave
Hong-Kong comes over as a slave, the property of
masters, who sell her in the city very much as a
planter used to sell his quadroon in New Orleans.
A case is now before the courts which proves so
much, if not a great deal more.

Ah Lee, a man of good repute and decent
means, lived with Low Yow, a woman who was
erroneously supposed to be his wife. They had
some words and parted company, on which Ah Lee

YELLOW AGONY. 273

requested Low Yow to pay him back a sum of
more than four hundred dollars, which he had placed
in her hands while they were passing as man and
wife. Low Yow refused.

' I will be even with you,' hissed Ah Lee, with
menacing gesture towards the woman.

Going before a magistrate, Ah Lee deposed that
the Chinese woman, called Low Yow, had sold a
Chinese girl, named Choy Ming, only thirteen years
of age, for two hundred dollars, and he implored
the magistrate to have that female slave-dealer
seized and sent to jail. A witness, called Ah Sing,
who said he was a brother of Choy Ming, sustained
the evidence given and sworn by Ah Lee. On
these statements, warrants were issued, and not only
Low Yow but Choy Ming were taken into charge.
Counsel was engaged for Choy Ming, but the trial
mainly turned on her own evidence. She was a
slave, she said. She was brought from China to
San Francisco as a slave, and there sold to Low
Yow, who afterwards sold her again to the keeper
of a bad house. She handed to the judge a bill of
sale, which had been given to her, according to the
custom of her country, by Low Yow.

VOL. II. T

274 WHITE CONQUEST.

The counsel for Low Yow denounced the whole
proceeding as a conspiracy on the part of Ah Lee
and Ah Sing to get his client into trouble. Two
elderly Chinese, living in Stout's Alley, swore that
Choy Ming was their child. She had been lured,
they said, from their lodgings, and had been kept
away from them some time. They had never sold
her to Low Yow, and Low Yow could not have sold
her to anyone else. Several Chinese witnesses gave
evidence of having seen Choy Ming with the two
old people, both when they were landing from the
ship and afterwards in going about the streets.

Choy Ming was recalled. Asked by the judge to
look in the witness box, and say whether the man
and woman were not her parents, she declared they
were not. She had never seen them in her life.
In saying they were her parents, the old man and
woman were forsworn. Ah Sing, her brother, would
confirm her story. Ah Sing was called. Was Choy
Ming his sister? Yes, Choy Ming, he answered,
was his sister. Were the old man and woman his
parents ? By the bones of his ancestors — no ! He
had never seen those old people before, and he was
certain they were not the parents of Choy Ming.

YELLOW AGONY. 275

Unable to believe a word of the evidence on
either side, the magistrate dismissed the case.

Choy Ming went home with Ah Sing and Ah
Lee, and nothing more was heard about her till
yesterday, when she appeared in Stout's Alley and
claimed a refuge with the old couple as their child.
On being asked about her evidence in the court,
she says she went home with Ah Lee, and stayed
with him some time, because Ah Sing frightened her
by his threats. She has been living on a ranch in
the country, but has now left the two men. Ah
Sing, she says, is not her brother, and she likes the
old folks better than the two men. Ah Lee and
Ah Sing both ill-use her, and she is tired of being
their wife.

Choy Ming, I learn, is scarcely thirteen years of
age!

Another case is that of a disputed cargo of female
slaves — a case still pending in the higher Courts.

About the Chinese women who are brought to
San Francisco there is unhappily no more mystery
than about the Circassian girls who used to be ex
posed for sale in the markets of Cairo and Damascus.
They are slaves. On coming to San Francisco with

T 2

276 WHITE CONQUEST.

their owners, they pay no landing-fee to the Sixth
Company ; for these women, having no place in the
Chinese system of family worship, require no sending
back to China after death. Like beasts that perish,
these female slaves are hidden out of sight.

The stories of these girls are often very sad.
Some of them are sold by their fathers, for the poorer
class of Mongol peasants always sell their girls, just
as the Indian savages always sell their squaws. Many
are stolen children, trapped and carried off by
scoundrels who beset the hamlets near the coast. In
every Chinese port there is a market for such wares.
At Hong Kong they have to be passed by an official,
but this official is too often satisfied with a form.
One dealer passes three or four girls as his daughters ;
a second dealer tries to bring out five or six as his
wives. A consul scrupulous on the score of poly
gamy, may refuse to pass so large a household ; but
the rascal has only to go to one of the lodging-
houses, where emigrants are waiting, and bestow a
wife on each moon-face — for the voyage. Under
these arrangements the girls arrive in San Fran
cisco, and are here sold, like Choy Ming, to anyone
who happens to want a female slave.

YELLOW AGONY. 277

Eager to meet a practical evil by practical
remedies, the Californians have passed a law em
powering the port authorities to inspect all vessels
coming in from Asia, and when they find a cargo of
females on board suspected of being slaves, and
obviously brought over for immoral purposes, to
require the company to carry them back.

A cargo soon arrived, for many merchants are
engaged in this abominable trade. 'You cannot
land these women,' said the port officials. ' We
shall see,' replied the merchants, who had bought
the girls on speculation and were anxious for a
profit on their wares. They went to law. The.
first Court at San Francisco justified the authorities,.
on which the merchants carried an appeal to Chief-
Justice Wallace, in the Supreme Court at Sacra
mento, who sustained the verdict of the local Court.
Foiled in their design, they went into the Circuit
Court of the United States, pleading that the laws
of California are in open conflict with the American
Constitution, and are therefore void in San Francisco,
part of the territory of the United States. The
Judges of the Circuit Court adopted this view.

Fretted by this verdict in the Circuit Court, the

278 WHITE CONQUEST.

people of California are carrying an appeal to the
Supreme Court in Washington ; but while Chief-
Justice Waite and his venerable brethren are strain
ing over points of law the female slaves are coming
in, and a free American State is not at liberty to
protect her streets against this moral leprosy. What
have the Californians done that they are hindered
from shutting their gates on these importers of
female slaves ?

The Judges say the soil is free. A female slave
becomes a free woman the moment she sets her foot
on Calif ornian ground. But who is to tell such a
creature as a Chinese slave that she is free ? Who
is to explain to her poor intelligence what is meant
by free soil ? A slave in her own country, she has
never heard of women of her class being free. In
San Francisco she is neither more nor less a slave
than she was in Canton or in Pekin. And yet no
power can hinder the slave-dealers from pouring
their abominable cargoes through the Golden Gate !

4 Just listen to this drivel,' pleads the Senator ;
' the President treats this Asiatic Question as though
it were a question of the minor morals ! '

Here are the President's words : ' I call the

YELLOW AGONY. 279

attention of Congress to the generally-conceded fact
that the great proportion of Chinese immigrants
who come to our shores do not come ostensibly
to make their homes with us and their labour
productive of general prosperity, but they come
under a contract with head-men, who own them
almost absolutely. In a worse form does this
apply to Chinese women. Hardly a perceptible
percentage of them perform honourable labour ;
they are brought for shameful purposes, to the
disgrace of the community where settled, and to
the great demoralization of the youth of those
localities. If this evil practice can be legislated
against, it will be my pleasure as well as duty to
enforce any regulation to ensure so desirable an
end.'

In Californian eyes, such words seem poor and
weak. ' If you compare this Message with the actual
facts, what can you call such words but drivel ? '
the Senator proceeds : ' Here, in Sacramento, we
have no illusion on the subject of this coming in of
Asiatic scum. The mandarins are emptying all their
cesspools on our coast. You doubt ! I tell you
China is an overcrowded country, where people

280 WHITE CONQUEST.

swarm beyond the means of life. They fill the
land with crimes. Millions are paupers, millions
more are slaves. In California the mandarins have
found a penal colony, to which, through our cupid
ity and folly, they are now transporting their
vagabonds, criminals, and harlots. They are mighty
smart, those mandarins, for they not only rid them
selves of social filth, but make these outcasts bear
the cost of their removal from the interior to Hong-
Kong. With all your cleverness, you English have
not yet been able to persuade an Australian colony
to receive your malefactors. We, too, are clever
fellows ; but we Californians have found no means
of emptying San Quentin and the Mexican quarter
of San Francisco into the suburbs of Pekin. These
heathens beat us from the field. What is the
President's remedy for these enormous evils? The
Chinese come under head-men, who own them
almost absolutely ; the women come as slaves, for
shameful practices. If these evils can be legislated
against, he will try to help us to administer the law ! '
' Your President is busy in the South.'
4 The South ! I tell you, Sir, that Negro trouble
in the South will pale ere long before this Mongol

YELLOW AGONY. 281

trouble in the West. In all our battles for the soil
this contest is the hardest and most dangerous. In
New Orleans you see the best and worst of African
Sam. . He stands in front of you ; so many rank
and file ; behind him no reserves. But Asiatic John
is a mystery. You cannot count him, in and out, or
march about him, back and front. He comes across
the sea in thousands ; nay, in tens of thousands ;
yet these thousands and tens of thousands are but
heralds of the mighty host. Millions may come
where thousands came, and tens of millions whence
the tens of thousands came.'

Is it mere frenzy to imagine such a swarm of
Asiatics arriving at the Golden Gate ? In former
days America was fed from Asia ? Why not be fed
again ? The men are on the other side. The sea
lies open to their ships. The transport pays.

' We are little more than thirty millions of White
people,' adds the Senator ; ' they are upwards of
three-hundred-and-sixty millions of Yellow people.
So, to spare us fifty millions would be nothing to
them, while the gift would be death to us.'

The Senator is right. A drain of fifty millions
from the Five Provinces would leave those provinces

282 WHITE CONQUEST.

as densely crowded as Ireland was before the famine.
It would pay the Government of Pekin to hire ships
and send these fifty millions out. Spread about
the United States, as labourers for wages always
spread themselves about, fifty millions of Mongols
would yield a safe majority in every ballot-box
from Oregon to the Gulf of Mexico.

Who says they will never come ? Who knows
what men will dare when pressed by want? Hunger
has broken through stone walls and braved tempes
tuous seas. Failure of a root transferred a third
part of the Irish people to America ; though an Irish
kerne is just as fond of his native soil as a Mon
golian peasant. Who knows the future of the tea-
plant? We have had a vine disease and a potato -
blight Suppose the tea-plant were to fail? If
such a disaster should convert China into another
Ireland, the people would have to leave it in
millions. If a seventh part of the Chinese people
came over to America, they would swamp the
ballot-boxes, and under a Kepublican Constitution
they might assume the ruling power.

283

CHAPTEE XXVII.

WHITE PROGRESS.

the menace of such an invasion from China,
threatening at no distant date to swallow up the
civilization of Europe in the barbarism of Asia, has
not the time arrived for White men of all sections in
America to review the situation ?

White conquest in America has been so rapid
and so uniform that men are not unlikely to be
careless of the future, fancying that their work is
done, their tenure of the land secured. When Han
cock and his comrades signed the Declaration of
Independence, Thirteen Colonies were represented at
the Congress in Philadelphia ; Thirteen Colonies,
covering less than five hundred thousand square
miles of surface, peopled by something under two
million five hundred thousand souls, of whom nearly
five hundred thousand were Africans, held in slavery.
At the end of a century those Thirteen Colonies

284 WHITE CONQUEST.

have grown into Thirty Nine States and Eight Ter
ritories, covering more than three million square
miles of surface, counting upwards of forty millions
of free inhabitants, without numbering the Kicka-
poos, who cannot be caught, and the Comanches and
Cheyennes, who cannot be taxed.

A mere fringe of sea-board, the young Eepublic
lay along the shores and inlets of a narrow moun
tain slope. From Penobscot river in Maine to
Attamaha river in Georgia the inhabitable land
was seldom more than a hundred miles in depth.
Here and there a fertile valley ran up two or
three hundred miles, but the foot of the Alleghan-
nies usually came down within a hundred miles of
the sea. At one point only had these mountain
barriers been crossed ; an opening in the Blue Eidge,
through which a few adventurous planters had passed
into the plains, now covered by West Virginia and
Kentucky ; and these stragglers from their kind had
to live at the mercy of Bed savages, who from time
to time burned the homesteads, scalped the men, and
carried the women to their camps. In patriotic
talk the setting sun was palled the western boundary ;
but the sun was then supposed to set, not in the

WHITE PROGRESS. 285

Pacific Ocean, over towards Japan, but on the peaks
and summits stretching from the Adirondack to the
Blue Eidge. Pittsburg, a village only nine years
old, stood in the desert. A man who ventured
down the Ohio in a canoe was honoured as an ex
plorer. On the spots where Wheeling and Cincin
nati stand to-day, with their schools and churches,
railways and manufactories, the adventurer saw the
smoke of Indian fires, and heard the war-whoop
of Indian camps. Red men hunted buffalo on the
plains of Indiana, paddled canoes down the Ohio,
and snared fish in the tributaries of the Big Drink.

South of the young Eepublic stood a watchful
and suspicious enemy, who wTas all the more difficult
to treat since she had formerly been a friend.
France held the mouth of the Mississippi, and, in her
ignorance of true political science, she had practi
cally closed that artery of commerce to Americans.
In a country without canals, and with hardly any
roads, free use of the great river was a first condi
tion of settlement in the Mississippi Valley, and nothing
like a free use of that river could be obtained from
the French viceroys reigning at New Orleans. By
nature and events alike the young Republic seemed

286 WHITE CONQUEST.

confined to her original seat, the shores and inlets
running down from Maine to Georgia.

When the War of Independence closed, not a
few good men were saddened by the out-look. The
nobler passions, called into activity by the war, were
spent, and nothing but the ordinary waste and wreck
of civil strife was left. Even Washington's stead
fast nerves were shaken. As he rode about the
settlements, thinking of what was yet to come, his
mind gave way to doubts and fears. The country
lay waste. Homesteads, abandoned by their
owners, were choked with mud and over-run by
vermin. Towns had been destroyed by the con
tending armies. Bridges were gone, mills burnt,
reservoirs emptied. The roads and tracks were
injured. Every man in the States was poorer than
he had been in the Colonies, and moody with the
loss of many comforts which use had made a second
nature. Every hamlet was beset by wounded men,
often by wretches in rags pretending to be wounded
men. One soldier in seven was supposed to be a
cripple, with a claim on his compatriots for bread.
The people were unsettled and in debt. After a life
of danger and excitement, no one had a mind to settle

WHITE PROGRESS. 287

down. All works of peace had fallen back. All
noble efforts had relaxed. There is no leveller like
war; and the levelling done by war is always
downward, crushing the higher and the lower
things together ; as in the Holy City, in the hurry
of defence, the porphyry shaft and ornamented
frieze were cast in to a common wall, along with
clay and pebbles, earth and unhewn stones.

Love of drink, a habit of the young Norse
gods, had grown under the hardships and privations
of war. A habit of cursing and swearing, also a
custom of the young Norse gods, had crept, under
the same malific influence, into every colony, almost
into every household. Education, once the first
thought in every town, had fallen into neglect ; and
teachers and professors, finding no field for their
abilities in the Eepublic, sailed to Europe, where their
talents might hope to meet with some reward.
Personal vice had grown into a fashion, and the
fine ladies of Boston and Eichmond thought it an
accomplishment to prattle in the jargon of Voltaire.

' The spirit of freedom,' said Washington, seven
years after the Declaration of Independence, 'has
long since subsided, and every selfish passion has

288 WHITE CONQUEST.

taken its place.' But, in the same high spirit, Wash
ington set himself to heal the wounds and repair the
miseries caused by war. And see with what results !
Prance has been bought off ; the outlets of the
Mississippi are in American hands. Spain has been
ousted from Florida, and Mexico driven from Cali
fornia, Arizona, and Texas. Nearly all the tem
perate, and some of the semi-tropical, zones of
America have been brought under the rule of
English idioms and American laws. Thirty States
and Territories, each about the size of Spain, have
been added to the Eepublic in a hundred years. In
these States and Territories there are forty millions
of free citizens, sixty three thousand churches, with
twenty- one million sittings ; a hundred and forty-
one thousand schools, two hundred and seventy
thousand teachers, and more than seven million boys
and girls attending school. Spread about these States
and Territories are fifty-six thousand public libraries,
containing nearly twenty million volumes ; a hun
dred thousand private libraries, containing nearly
twenty-six million volumes. The States and Terri
tories produce five thousand eight hundred news
papers, with a yearly issue of fifteen thousand

WHITE PROGRESS. 289

million copies. They are covered by four hundred
millions of farms, and these farms are valued at two
thousand million pounds sterling. There are seven
million five hundred thousand separate families, with
seven million separate houses, so that, with a few
exceptions, every head of a family in this Eepublic
has a separate home.

During the hundred years of her young life the
United States may claim their share in the inventions
which have done the most to serve mankind. Set
ting aside, as open to dispute, their claim to the inven
tion of steam-ships and electric wires, the list of in
ventions and improvements on inventions is a long
and curious document. An American invented the
cotton-gin. An American invented the rotatory
printing-press. The apple-parer and the knife-cleaner
are American. The grass-cutter, the steam-mower,
and the planing-machine are all American. Is not
the hot-air-engine American? Is not the whole
India-rubber business American ? One American
taught us how to make wool-cards, another to
make horse-shoes by machinery. The sand-blast is
American, the grain-elevator is American. Ameri
cans claim the electro-magnet and the artificial

VOL. II. U

290 WHITE CONQUEST.

manufacture of ice. The land is rich in genius,
and especially in suggesting and contriving genius.
America has the biggest cataract and the broadest
mountain range in the world ; but she has known
how to throw a bridge over that cataract and to
carry a railway over that mountain range.

More obvious, perhaps, though not more striking,
is the growth of her several capitals. New York,
Chicago, Cincinnati, and San Francisco have been
noticed by strangers more than others ; yet it is
doubtful whether the growth of either New York or
Chicago has been so striking as that of Philadelphia.

291

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PHILADELPHIA.

PHILADELPHIA is the best example of White progress
in America, because nothing accidental, nothing
temporary, rules the conditions of her growth. She
has not been made a Eoyal residence, like Eome ; the
centre of a new imperial system, like Berlin. No
great discovery of mineral wealth has drawn to her
the daring spirits of all nations, like San Francisco.
She is not the chief entry of immigrants from
Europe, like New York. She has not sprung into
fashion like Brighton and Saratoga. She owes no
part of her fortune to having been made a free port,
like Livorno, or to her having taken the fancy of a
Cassar, like Madrid. Her growth is natural. Ac
cidental growth is seen in many towns. A railway
bridge secures prosperity to Omaha ; a line of docks
makes Birkenhead ; a spring of oil gives life to
Petrolia. But Philadelphia owes her wealth to

292 WHITE CONQUEST.

general causes, and her greatness is not jeopardized
by the failure of a dozen industries.

Men now living in Walnut Street remember a
time when Philadelphia was not so large asCroydon.
She is now bigger than Berlin — nearly as big as
New York. Only fifty years ago she was about the
size of Edinburgh. Ten years later she was as big
as Dublin. In another ten years she had outgrown
Manchester. Fifteen years ago she was ahead of
Liverpool. At the pressnt moment Philadelphia is
more than equal to Manchester, Liverpool, and
Sheffield combined. If the population of Dublin
and Edinburgh, York, Lancaster, and Chester were
counted in one list they would hardly make up half
the number of people who house in Philadelphia at
this present day. If size is but another name for
power the City of Brotherly Love is metropolitan.

Leaving out Chinese cities, Philadelphia claims
to be the fourth city in the world, admitting no
superiors save London, Paris, and New York. She
over-caps all other rivals. She is bigger than
Moscow and St. Petersburg, the two capitals of
Russia, put together. The three capitals of the Austro-
Magyar Monarchy, Vienna, Pesth, and Prague, fall

PHILADELPHIA. 293

far below her numbers. She has left behind her
the four capitals of United Italy — Rome, Florence,
Naples, and Turin. She claims to have at the
present hour a population somewhat exceeding eleven
hundred thousand souls.

The growth of modern Borne, the splendour uf
Berlin, are not so singular as the growth and
splendour of Philadelphia. No city in our time has
thriven so much as Borne has done since she became
the capital of Italy ; yet in point of population Borne
is but a sixth-rate town. In three years London
adds to her numbers more people than cluster on
the Seven Hills. In four years Philadelphia does
the same. No one supposes that Borne will grow
for ever as she is growing now. A Government, a
Court, an army, and a Parliament, cannot enter her
gates every year. Berlin has grown with an amazing
swiftness, and the capital of Imperial Germany may
feel the impulse of events longer than Borne ; for
Germany is a bigger country than Italy, her state
system is less parochial, and more of her chief
citizens, both civil and military, find their interest
in living near the Emperor's court. Yet in Berlin, as
in Washington, Madrid, and other artificial capitals,

294 WHITE CONQUEST.

the limit of this accidental growth must soon be
reached. Berlin is not, like London and like
Philadelphia, a great commercial centre, with a-
port sufficiently near the sea for purpose of trade.
Berlin is land-locked, like Madrid. Few things are
more certain than that the future capitals of the
world will stand on both elements, accessible, as
Constantine said of Byzantium, by sea and land.
We hear so rarely of this silently-growing city
on the Delaware that four persons in every five
will be amazed to hear that, like New York,
Philadelphia has left such ancient and historic
capitals as Vienna and Constantinople far behind.

And yet her growth seems no less sound in bole
than high in branch and rich in foliage. On com
ing back into the city after some years' absence you
are caught by a surprise at every turn. You may
not like to say you left the city clay and find it
marble, yet the saying would not seem a great per
version of the facts. Eight years ago I left many
of my friends in brick houses, who are now dwelling
in marble palaces. The thoroughfares are rising
into pomp and show. I do not speak just now of
public buildings of exceptional character and excel-

PHILADELPHIA. 295

lence — such edifices as Girard's College, the most
perfect classical building in America, or of the new
Girard bridge, over the Schuylkill Eiver — the widest,
perhaps the handsomest, iron roadway in the world
—but of ordinary structures — clubs and banks,
churches and law-courts, masonic halls, hotels, and
newspaper offices. Two or three of the new banks
are equal to the best things lately done in Lombard
Street, while the great Masonic Temple puts the
residence of our own Grand Lodge to shame. The
new churches are mostly in good style and rich
material, nearly all being faced with either rough
green-stone or polished white marble. The new
buildings of the University of Pennsylvania — partly
completed — are fine in exterior, built of the rough
green-stone peculiar to the place, faced with red
sand-stone, as well as rich in apparatus and col
lections, the department of physics being particularly
good.

Broad Street is not yet a rival of Pall Mall, but
Penn Square is both larger and better built than St.
James's Square. Market Street is not yet equal to
the Strand, but Chestnut Street is not unworthy to
rank with Cheapside ; and in a few years the busi-

296 WHITE CONQUEST.

ness quarters of Philadelphia will vie in architectural
effect with that of the best parts of London, even
Queen Victoria Street and Ludgate Hill.

But banks are banks, and clubs are clubs. A
special beauty may be gained in one part of a city
at the expense of others, as we have seen in Blooms-
bury and Belgravia, when thousands on thousands
of the poor were routed out of ricketty old lodgings
to make room for New Oxford Street and Grosvenor
Gardens. Such things occur in great cities without
being signs of growth. The pulling-down of Paris,
under Louis Napoleon, was no evidence of public
health, but rather of a hectic glow and morbid
appetite for change. How are the ordinary houses
in a city built ? How are the masses lodged ? These
are the questions which a statesman and a moralist
ought to ask. It is not enough to ask whether,
behind these banks and palaces, lie Field Lanes and
Fox Courts ; it is of more- importance to see how
the average classes of mankind are housed.

In no place, either in America or out of it, have
I seen such solid work — such means of purity arid
comfort — in the ordinary private houses, as in
Philadelphia. There seem to be no sheds, no hovels,

PHILADELPHIA. 297

no impurities. In almost every house I find a bath
room. Let uo reader think the presence of a bath
room in a house a little thing. It is a sign. A
bath means cleanliness, and cleanliness means health.
In Oriental countries we see the baths of sultans
and pashas ; basins of marble, in the midst of shady
trees, with jets of flashing water ; luxuries for the
rich, not necessaries for the poor. Here we have
baths for everyone who likes to pay for water ; and
I read in the Water Company's report that more
than forty thousand heads of families in Philadelphia
pay that company a water-rate for household baths.
That record is a greater honour to the city — as
implying many other things, the thousand virtues
that depend on personal cleanliness — than even the
beauties of Fairmont Park.

Yet Fairmont Park, containing three thousand
five hundred acres, and lying along the Schuylkill
River and Wissahickon Creek, is a wonder of the
earth. Think of a park in which Hyde Park, with
its four hundred acres (the Ring, the Serpentine,
and the Ladies' Mile) would be lost! Central Park,
New York, is more than double the size of Hyde
Park, yet Central Park would lie in a. mere corner

298 WHITE CONQUEST.

of Fairmont Park. All the seven London Parks
thrown into one — Victoria, Greenwich, Finsbury,
Battersea, St. James's, Hyde, and Eegent's — would
not make one Fairmont Park.

Nor is the loveliness of Fairmont Park less
striking than the size. Neither the Prater in
Vienna, nor Las Delicias in Seville, nor the Bois
de Boulogne in Paris, though bright and varied, can
compare in physical beauty with Fairmont. The
drive along the Guadalquiver on a summer evening
is delicious ; and the views of Sevres and St. Cloud
are always charming ; but the Schuylkill is a more
picturesque river than either the Guadalquiver near
Seville or the Seine near Paris. The view from
George Hill combines the several beauties of the
view from Eichmond Hill and Greenwich Hill.
There is a wooded country rolling backwards into
space. There is the wide and winding river at your
feet, and, just beyond the river, camps of spires and
steeples, towers and domes ; and, rising over all, like
a new Parthenon, the noble pile called Girard's Col
lege. Seen on a sunny day, in the Indian summer,
when the forest leaves are burning into gold and
crimson, and the shining marble flashes through the

PHILADELPHIA. 299

air, this view from George Hill is one of the things
which, ' seen, become a part of sight.'

Yet, in this proud story of American growth,
there is some drawback. May one hint that in the
halls of victory there is a sad, if not a serious, writing
on the wall ?

3co WHITE CONQUEST

CHAPTER XXIX.

FAIR WOMEX.

APART from that Conflict of Race which is her
permanent tragedy, America has many campaigns to
carry on ; campaigns in the civil order, and on both
her moral and material sides. She has to recover
her fair proportion of the female sex. She has to
restore a true balance of the sexes on her soil. She
has to cure her people of that love of strong drinks
which they get from their English ancestors, but
which is quickened by a climate rich in extremes
of heat and cold. She has to meet a vast amount of
that illiteracy which is not only the bane of nations
but, as Shakespeare says, ; the curse of God.'

Among the evils which impede White growth in
America, that poverty in the female sex, which is
caused by separate male adventure in the outset, is
the first and worse. No 'riches in the soil, no beauty
in the landscape, no salubrity in the climate, can

FAIR WOMEN. 301

make up to a colony for the paucity of women.
Women are the other halves of men.

The absence of White women at San Diego and
San Carlos, was the chief, if not the only, reason
for the waste and failure of the first White Con
quest on the Slope! If Don Eivera had allowed
each of his troopers to bring an Andalusian wife to
Monterey, the first people in California would have
been Spanish, Catholic and civilized, instead of being
mongrel, pagan, and semi-savage. If the Yankee
Boys and Sydney Ducks had brought American and
English wives to San Francisco, there would have
been less drinking, shooting, suicide, and divorce, in
that delightful city of the Golden Gate. If the
trapper and the miner in the Rocky Mountains,
could obtain their natural mates, there would be
no Jem Bakers, living in cabins with five or six
squaws a piece, provoking Shoshones to attack White
ranches and Cheyennes to steal White women from
the emigrant trains. If America stood in her natural
order as regards the sexes, there would be an end
of buying and selling Indian girls, and the irruption
of an Asiatic horde of female slaves would be less ap
palling to the moral sense.

302 WHITE CONQUEST.

Domestic trouble in America would cease for
want of aliment. Most of this trouble may be traced
directly to the disproportion of the sexes. If the
males and females were so fairly mixed, that every
man who felt inclined to marry could find a wife, he
would be likely to leave his neighbour's wife alone.
If every woman had the chance given to her by nature
of securing one man's preference, and no more, she
would be less dreamy and ideal, less exercised about
her rights and wrongs, less moved about her place
in creation. A woman with one mate, and no visible
temptation to change her partner for another, and
still another, would pay scant heed to those quacks of
either sex, who come to her with their jargon about
affinities and passionals. She would want no higher
laws, and seek no greater freedom than her English
mothers have enjoyed in wedded love.

But how is moral order to be kept in regions
where there are two males to each female, as in
Oregon, three males to each female as in Nevada
and Arizona, four males to every female as in Idabo,
Wyoming, and Montana?

No other civilised and independent common
wealth shows the same phenomena as America.

PAIR WOMEN. 303

Iii 1871, the United Kingdom had, in round
numbers, a population of thirty-one million six hun
dred and seventeen thousand souls. Of this total,
fifteen million three hundred and sixty thousand
were masculine souls ; sixteen million two hundred
and fifty-seven thousand feminine souls : excess of
females over males in the United Kingdom, eight
hundred and ninety-seven thousand souls.

In 1870, the United States had also, in round
numbers, a White population of thirty-three million
five hundred and eighty-nine thousand souls. Of this
total, seventeen million and twenty-nine thousand
were masculine souls ; sixteen million five hundred
and sixty thousand feminine souls : excess of males
over females in the United States and Territories,
four hundred and sixty-nine thousand souls.

The mischief springs from the immigration of single
men, or married men who leave their wives behind
in Europe. Taking the country all in all, nothing
in the air of America seems to foster male growth
at the expense of female growth. Among the Eed
men there is about the same excess of females as
prevails in Europe. Black men show a larger propor
tion of females ; and among their bastard brethren, the

304 WHITE CONQUEST.

Mulattoes, this proportion rises to the figure of ten
females to seven males. Mixture of blood seems
unfavourable to the natural rule of female births.
The White people in America follow the same laws
of growth as White people in Europe.

Take the case of Prussia, as a country in which
the White race has always grown, and is still grow
ing, in the natural order. Prussia is a staid and
prosperous country, where the peasant is well-taught,
well-governed and well-drilled. The movement in her
population has been very slight. Where Prussia has
sent out one emigrant, the United Kingdom has sent
out more than fifty emigrants. During the forty
years in which the tides of population were rolling at
the flood from Europe to America, Prussia only lost
a hundred thousand souls. Her people, therefore,
may be taken as a sample of the White race in
Europe, in their normal state.

In 1871, Prussia had a population of twenty-
four million six hundred and ninety-three thousand
souls. Of this total, twelve million one hundred and
seventy-four thousand were masculine souls ; twelve
million five hundred and eighteen feminine souls :

FAIR WOMEN. 305

excess of females over males in Prussia, three
hundred and forty three thousand.

These figures give an average for Prussia of
thirteen more females than males in every thousand
souls : an average which is exactly that of Maryland,
and very nearly that of New York and Connecticut.

England and Germany owe to America more
than eight hundred thousand females ; a debt in face
of which all other claims for compensation are the
merest bagatelles.

Who can say how much America suffers from this
loss ? It used to be said, that every man landing in
New York was worth a thousand dollars to the
republic. Women are worth as much as men ; in
some parts of America more than men. Suppose
each female landing in New York is worth a
thousand dollars. What is the value, even on the
lowest ground of money, of those eight hundred
thousand women who are owing by England and
Germany to the United States? Eight hundred
million of dollars : two hundred million pounds
sterling !

But America is suffering, morally and socially,
not only from her absolute and general paucity in

VOL. n. x

3o6 WHITE CONQUEST.

female life, but from her partial and unhappy distri
bution of what she has. In England, France and
Germany the sexes find a natural level. One county
or one province is no richer than another. Essex
has about the same average as Cheshire ; Normandie
the same average as Provence ; Brandenburg the
same average as the Ehine. In every region there
is a slight excess of female life. JSTot so in the
United States. While the republic as a whole is
poor, nearly half the States are rich, some of them
over-rich. In seventeen states, and in the district of
Columbia, there are more women than men. In
some of these states the difference is slight. For
instance, in the great State of Pennsylvania, count
ing more than three million five hundred thou
sand souls, there is a difference in the sexes of only
one in the thousand souls. Maine and Mississippi
show the same result. In Louisiana there is a differ
ence of three ; in New Jersey of seven ; in Tennessee
of nine, in each thousand souls. But in several of the
older states, the excess of female numbers runs very
high ; in some beyond that of Great Britain and
Ireland. In every thousand souls of the United
Kingdom, there are four hundred and eighty-six

FAIR WOMEN. 307

males to five hundred and fourteen females ; a differ
ence in the thousand of twenty- eight, where Prussia
shows a difference of thirteen. In every thousand
souls of Massachusetts there are four hundred and
eighty-three males to five hundred and seventeen
females ; a difference in the thousand of thirty- four,
where Great Britain and Ireland show a difference of
only twenty-eight. North Carolina has a greater ex
cess of females than any country in Europe except
Sweden, and the old Puritan State of Ehode Island
overtops her Puritan neighbour Massachusetts.

The most crowded female region in the civilised
world is the district of Columbia, in the centre of
which Washington stands. In this purgatory of
women, there are, in every thousand souls, five hun
dred and twenty-eight females to four hundred and
seventy-two males. No one appears to understand
the causes of this singular phenomenon. We know
the reason why Great Britain shows a larger excess
of females than Prussia. During the present genera
tion Great Britain has sent out half a million more
emigrants than Prussia, and a vast majority of these
emigrants have been males. A similar explanation
covers the cases of Massachusetts and Ehode Island ;

x2

3o8 WHITE CONQUEST.

but the district of Columbia is not an ancient colony,
from which the sons go out into the western plains,
leaving their sisters in the old homesteads. Colum
bia means Washington, a city of art ; of fashion and of
pleasure ; a city in which it is easy to drink and
dice, to dance and flirt. - Women are drawn to
Washington, because Washington is the capital ; the
seat of government ; a place in which there are
many single men ; and in which more money is spent
than earned.

In all the other states and territories, there is
excess of male life. lu some, as Vermont, Delaware,
and Kentucky, the excess is slight — not more than
seven in each thousand souls. In others, such as
Utah, Indiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico, the
surplus male life is not excessive. In California,
Kansas, and Minnesota, the excess is striking ; and
in Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, it is
enormous — three to one, and even four to one.
Does any one need evidence as to the moral and
social aspects of a region in which there is only one
White woman to four White men ?

Physical loss appears to follow closely in the wake
of this moral loss. For many years, nobody paid

FAIR WOMEN. 3°9

attention to such facts ; but since the publication of
' New America,' an enquirer here and there has
looked at such returns as he could get — always to
be disheartened, often to be appalled.

Catharine E. Beecher, an advocate for woman's
freedom, has made enquiries into the physical health
of American females, and the result is, that among
her ' immense circle of friends and acquaintance
all over the Union,' she is ' unable to recall so
many as ten married ladies, in this century and
country, who are perfectly sound, healthy, and
vigorous.' Passing beyond her own large circle,
Catharine Beecher goes into twenty-six towns, and
takes ten average cases in each town. Of two
hundred and sixty ladies, only thirty-eight are
found in a fair state of health. Sixty other towns
are tested, with a similar result. If these returns
are good for anything (and they are quoted with
approval by government officials) they prove that
only one American woman in ten is physically fit
for the sacred duties of wife and mother !

Three years ago, the Bureau of Education printed
a paper on the Vital Statistics of America, which
passed like an ice-bolt through the hearts of

3io WHITE CONQUEST.

patriotic Americans. This paper showed that the
birth-rate is declining in America from year to
year ; not in one State only, but in every State.
The decline is constant and universal ; the same
in Arkansas and Alabama as in Massachusetts and
Connecticut, in Michigan and Indiana as in Pennsyl
vania and New York. The rate was higher in 1800
than in 1820 ; higher in 1820 than in 1840 ; higher
in 1840 than in 1860. The birth-rate is admitted
to be larger among the immigrants than among the
natives ; yet the average, thus increased by strangers,
is lower than that of any country in Europe, not
excepting the birth-rate of France in the worst days
of Louis Napoleon.

Some of the ablest statists and physicians of
Boston have come to the conclusion that the White
race cannot live on the American soil ! Nothing
has been done by law to mitigate this curse of an
unequal distribution of the sexes. What has been
done is the result of accident — as statesmen think
of ' accidents.' In 1860 America counted no less
than seven hundred and fifty thousand more males
than females on her soil. Ten years later this
enormous balance was reduced by three hundred

FAIR WOMEN. 311

thousand. Inequality began with immigration, and
will cease when immigration stops. America can
readily account for the disturbance in her social
system ; the whole excess of male life in America
being due to the fact that, in the ten years from
1860-70, four hundred and fifty thousand more
males than females entered the ports of Boston and
New York.

Her surplus male population is four hundred and
sixty-nine thousand. If during the ten years, from
1860 to 1870, no immigrants had come in — or if
the male and female arrivals had been equal in
numbers — -she would have shown a total of only
nineteen thousand males over females. Thus her
balance of the sexes would have been partially re
stored. With the stoppage of immigration the curse
will die down. But is not such a cure as bad as
the disease ?

312 WHITE CONQUEST.

CHAPTER XXX.

CRUSADERESSING.

GREAT is the evil, wild are the efforts made by
Americans to cure the evil of intemperance.

Springing from English and German fathers,
the Americans come of a race among whom free
tippling was a pious rite and social courtesy, as well
as the gratification of a physical appetite. Our
gods were hard drinkers as well as strong fighters ;
and the lovely shield-maidens and wish- maidens
who enchanted our fallen heroes, had the duty of
pouring out horns of mead and ale. We denizens
of earth were quick to follow the example of our gods
and heroes in their House of Joy. Teutonic love
©f ale and mead survived the fall of Odin and his
wish-maidens ; taking shape under the new faith as
church-ales and grace-cups. We have our God-speeds
and stirrup-cups ; our Lent ales, Lammas ales, and
Christmas ales. We drink at christenings, at wed-

CRUSADERESSING. 313

dings, and at funerals. Our marriage feasts are
bride-ales. We pledge the new-born babe in strong
liquors, and renew our memory of the dead in wine.
We Teutons are the poets of good cheer. A Saxon
princess left us the phrase, ' Liever Kyning wass
heal — Dear King, your health' — the origin of our
present Wassail. An English damsel gave us the
Toast. To us belong the loving cup and the parting
glass. Ours among nations are those fines and foot
ings which are levied on the tradesman and artisan,
to be spent by good fellows in drink. In truth, we
have a craving for strong waters which no religious
precepts, no municipal regulations have ever yet
been able to subdue.

Americans have our virtues and our appetites.
They drink a great deal more than Gauls, Italians,
and Iberians drink ; on the other side, they work
harder and fight fiercer than Gauls, Italians, and
Iberians work and fight. Alike in what they do,
and what they fail to do, the emphasis of a strong
original character comes out in them.

Alike in England and America, we have tried a
hundred methods of repression. We have tried
fines in money ; we have tried exposure in the

3H WHITE CONQUEST.

stocks ; we have tried imprisonment in jails. Our
American cousins have gone farther in the way of
repression than ourselves. In some States they have
forbidden the sale of intoxicating drinks ; in others
they have placed the traffic under regulations which
are almost as stringent as prohibition. In several
States they have made the drink-seller responsible
for the injuries done by drunken men and women,
and in many more they have allowed the plea of
habitual drunkenness as ground for a divorce.

In America, as in England, the results are so far
doubtful that the efficacy of such measures can be
plausibly denied. Taken as a whole, America con
sumes more whisky than ever. In the most sober of
her States the convictions for drunkenness are increas
ing. Maine, in spite of her rigid system, has more
offenders and more fines this year than she has had
for any other year since prohibition was adopted as
her rule. Massachusetts, after trying the policy of
prohibition for more than twenty years, has recently
repealed the law, and come back to the system of re
cognising the sale of drink, and regulating that sale
by licences. In Ohio, they have tried State laws, police
inspection, and private enthusiasm. Judges and police

CRUSADERESSING. 315

have failed ; preachers and missionaries have also
failed. They have tried crusaders of both sexes,
not only preaching men but singing women. In
all these efforts they have failed, yet not so
signally as to discourage new attempts. The singing
movement, though abated by the magistrates as a
public nuisance, is regarded by pious people as
having left behind it in Ohio some exceedingly
precious fruits.

Few subjects are more tempting to an artist than
the comic side presented by Mother Carey and her
female troop of singers ; but I feel too much respect
for women, even when I cannot go all lengths with
them, to treat these ladies otherwise than with the
reverence due to spotless motives and noble aims.
These singing women were good and decent females,
members of various churches, and especially of the
Wesleyan Churches. Watching the temperance
societies, and noting what they thought the causes
of their failure, these ladies came to the conclusion
that as moral agents, men are played out, and that
women must set their shoulders to the wheel. With
feminine ways of thought, they put the matter in
this light before themselves. The thirst for strong

316 WHITE CONQUEST.

drink is not only a natural passion, but a universal
and abiding passion ; while the efforts made by
men to put it down are fitful and empirical —
paper pledges, social orders, public meetings, and
prohibitive laws. No man has dreamt of an appeal
to God. These women saw that a field lay open to
their enterprise. It was the field of prayer, and
they resolved to try the power of prayer.

They entered on a crusade of prayer against
intoxicating drinks, and took on themselves the
duty of crusaderesses. They prayed at church.
They prayed in their own rooms. They called
meetings for prayer. When they were ripe for bolder
things, they stept into the streets, and stood in front
of drinking-bars, praying for the whisky-drinkers,
praying for the whisky-vendors, wrestling with the
potent and evil spirit. Their work began in Fourth
Street. First meeting in church, and asking the Divine
blessing on their trial, the ladies fell into ranks,
two and two, and then passed into the street
singing their hymns. Near the Exchange stands a
famous drinking-bar, to which merchants repair for
a free lunch, and wash that free lunch down with
copious draughts of whisky and water. Here the

CRUSADERESSING. 317

ladies halted, formed a half-circle round the door,
closed up the side- walk, began to sing the Eock of
Ages, after which they knelt down on the stones
to pray.

Men came out of the bar to look at these visitors.
Still more stopped in the street, arrested by the
sacred sounds. A crowd soon blocked the street.
Cars could not pass, and waggons had to turn
another way. Some persons joked and mocked,
others threw copper cents into the circle. Many
looked at them with pity, not unmixed with wonder,
for the masculine brain is slow to see a chance of
moral progress in proceedings which resemble a
row, and may easily end in a riot. Yet the women
held the side-walk, finished their prayer, got up and
sang more hymns. Americans are fond of hymns,
and there are few Americans who will not doff their
caps and join in singing such pieces as the Eock of
Ages and There is a Fountain. After holding the
whisky-bar in siege for about an hour, the ladies
formed ranks, and marched back to their church,
followed by a crowd of men and boys — some of
whom, it is supposed, had hardly ever been inside
a church before. A short service ended the day.

3i 8 WHITE CONQUEST.

For several weeks these scenes went on. Some
bar-keepers opened their doors and bade the ladies
come in. They entered, filling the bar, and
hustling the men away. Other dealers gave in and
closed their bars. A few of the whisky-vendors,
chiefly Jews, insulted the ladies, giving free drinks to
any rough who would join in chanting jovial and in
decent choruses ; yet the ladies persevered until a
thousand bars had been closed by their appeals and
interruptions. But the movement could not be
allowed to spread. The ladies blocked the streets^
traffic got deranged, and when the novelty was
over, the great merchants arid bankers of Cincinnati
forced the civic authorities to interfere. Reform was
sacrificed to trade.

' Our public officers,' says to me a Good Templar,
' are all elected by the liquor interest, and the Police
Commissioners dare not raise a hand against the
keepers of saloons and bars.'

The trade in strong drink is so profitable in
Ohio that bar-keepers can afford to stand many
drinks and pay many fines ; yet a judge who knows
his work can always carry his point against dis
honest citizens. A Hebrew dealer was brought

CRUSADERESSING. 3 1 9

before a magistrate on a charge of selling whisky
without a permit. ' You are fined ten dollars,' said
the judge. ' Ten dollars ! ' sneered the Jew. ' I pay
him — shell agen.' Next time the offender was fined
twenty dollars. ' Twenty dollars ! ' he snapt ; ' pay
him, and shell agen.' Brought up a third time and
fined a hundred dollars, he looked blank and beaten.
' Eh ! a hundred dollars ? a hundred ! Deri I schtop.'
But magistrates are lenient — perhaps too le
nient with offenders. By the Adair Law any bar
keeper in Ohio who supplies a man with drink is
answerable for that man's misdeeds ; answerable
whether he supplies the whole or only part of what
his customer may have drunk. Thus a man may
come into a bar and drink a cocktail. He may go to
a second house and have a mint-julep. Later on, he
may take an eye-opener, and after that a whisky-
smash. By this time he may be tipsy, quarrelsome
and disorderly, and the landlords who have each
supplied him with sixpenny worth of liquor, are
each and all responsible for his misdeeds. Such a
law needs to be wisely read and cautiously applied.
The crusaders and crusaderesses say it is not applied
at all.

320 WHITE CONQUEST.

' Guess now, you'll say it's good fun and
turns a few cents pretty well, to invest in liquor,'
my Good Templar observes. ' At a cost of twenty-
five cents a fellow gets drunk. He may then disturb
the street and break a man's head. Taken before
the judge he gets a night's lodging and a square
meal — all for the original twenty-five cents.'

' And how would you prevent such incidents ? '

c Well, I guess the sale of liquor should be made
penal.'

' Surely it is nowhere in America penal to sell
such wines and spirits as are freely sold in every
town of Europe?'

.

' No, not quite, yet very near. Have you ever
been to St. Johnsbury, in Vermont ? No ! Then
you should see St. Johnsbury, in Vermont ; a sober
place, where nobody can get a drop of drink !'

'What is St. Johnsbury?'

'Sir, St. Johnsbury is a Working-man's Paradise.'

321

CHAPTEE XXXI.
THE WORKMAN'S PARADISE.

VERMONT, in which St. Johnsbury nestles, is a New
England State, which in its origin and population
had very little to do with Old England. The names
are French. Vermont is derived from the Green
Mountain of our idiom ; St. Johnsbury from Mon
sieur St. Jean de Crevecoeur, once a fussy little
French consul in New York.

Eye of man has seldom rested on natural loveli
ness more perfect than the scenery amidst which St.
Johnsbury stands. On passing White Eiver Junc
tion, a spot which recalls a favourite nook in the
Neckar valley, we push into a gorge of singular
beauty ; a reach of the Connecticut Eiver, lying
under high and wooded hills, of various form and
more than metallic brightness. Oak and chestnut,
pine and maple, clothe the slopes. White houses
lie about you ; some in secret places, utterly alone

VOL. II. Y

322 WHITE CONQUEST,

with Nature ; others again, in groups and villages,
with gardens, fruit trees, and patches of maize,
among which the great red gourds lie ripening in the
sun. At times the hills roll back, giving up margin
and meadow to the grazier. Here you have herds
of cattle, there droves of horses, feeding on the hill
sides, or sauntering to the stream. Yet the main
charm of this valley is the water — first of the Con
necticut Eiver, then of the Passumpsic Eiver ; each
of these water-courses having the beauty common
to flowing rivers and mountain streams. A pause.
We mount a slope, and we are in the leaf-strewn
avenue known as St. Johnsbury ; the proper crown
and citadel of that river-bed.

A ridge of hills divides Passumspic Eiver from
Sleeper's Creek. Uplands start from the farther
bank of these two streams, and shut us in with green
and purple heights, on which the sunrise and the
sunset play with wondrous harmonies of light and
shade.

When George the Third was king, the countries
lying about Sleeper's Creek and Passumpsic Eiver,
were the unhappy hunting-grounds of Indian braves ;
unhappy, since they lay between the lodges of two

THE WORKMAN'S PARADISE. 323

warlike tribes, neither of whom was strong enough
to drive the other from these woods and streams.
Each fall the battle was renewed. Many a scalp
was taken on the site now occupied by an
Academy, many a war-dance held on the sward now
covered by an Athenaeum. A poor attempt was
made to plant the place, and several thrifty Scots
built cabins near the ridge ; but Indian hatchets
made it difficult for even these tenacious strangers
to maintain a foothold in the land.

Vermont was still a wild country when the
Thirteen Colonies declared themselves independent.
She was admitted to the Union under French im
pulses and French sentiments. Monsieur St. Jean
was good enough to offer his name to the Scotch
settlers on Sleeper's Creek. Now St. Jean is in
France a common, not to say a rustic name, like
Hodge in England, and the colonists, though
anxious to pay a compliment to Monsieur St. Jean,
proposed to alter his name so far as to call their
place St. Johns ; a form which looks poetic in
English eyes, and drops sonorously from English
lips. Monsieur was hurt. He loved America
so well that he named his daughter Amerique.

T 2

324 WHITE CONQUEST.

Why should not America call one of her towns after
him ? The matter was not easy to arrange. Mon
sieur St. Jean sailed for France, where he asserted
he could do the settlers service. So they called
their place St. Jean. But when the fussy little con
sul got to Paris, he found people too busy with their
revolution to pay much attention to the graziers
and bushmen on Sleeper's Creek. Thinking the
consul false, the Scots changed their name to St.
Johns. But then, there are several St. Johns in the
neighbourhood ; notably one on the Eichlieu Eiver ;
so by way of difference, they took the name of St.
Johnsbury, a form in which the Gallic origin is
completely lost

In spite of much natural beauty, and a vast
supply of water power, the place made little
progress, Eoads were bad and markets distant.
Here and there some farmer built a hut, some grazier
fenced a field. A fall of water tempted families
into the lumber trade. A hostelry crowned the
ridge, St. Johnsbury House, kept by a hard drinking
and harder fighting Captain Barney, who made the
rafters crack with his jokes, and the hill-side noisy
with his quarrels. St. Johnsbury, peopled by

THE WORKMAN'S PARADISE. 325

whisky-loving Scots, was anything but a sober place
under Captain Barney's rule. Yet life was dull and
progress slow, till Thadeus Fairbanks, improver of
the platform scale, gave the impetus which has
made St. Johnsburg one of the most curious spots
in the United States.

St. Johnsbury is a garden, yet the physical beauty
of the place is less engaging than the moral order.
No loafer hangs about the kerbstones. Not a
beggar can be seen. No drunkard reels along the
street. You find no dirty nooks, and smell no
hidden filth. There seem to be no poor. In two
days' wandering up and down I have not seen
one child in rags, one woman looking like a slut.
The men are at work, the boys and girls at school.
Each cottage stands apart, with grass and space ; each
painted either white or brown. White, the costlier
and more cheery colour, is the test of order and
prosperity. Few of the cottages are brown. I see
no broken panes of glass, no shingles hanging from
the roof. No yard is left in an untidy state.

The men who live in these cottages send their
children to the grammar-school in Main Street, a
public school, in which they are educated free of

326 WHITE CONQUEST.

cost. The school is an attractive place, the teaching
good, the playground large. If a man wants an
elementary training for his boys and girls this
public school will give it, and will send them at
an early age into the world equipped for any walk
in life, except that of the professional man.

St. Johnsbury is a working village ; the people
in it are mainly working men. It is a village such
as we are striving after in our Shaftesbury Parks
and other experiments in providing wholesome
lodgings for our labouring classes, in the hope that
they may be persuaded, first to save their money
and then to put it into real estate by purchasing
the houses in which they live. Here the problem
has been solved ; a working-class proprietary se
cured. In many cases — I have reason to infer in
most — the craftsmen own the cottages in which they
live. Inside, each cottage is a model of its kind,
with all appliances for cleanliness and comfort ; in
short, a neat and well-arranged domestic shrine.

What are the secrets of this Workman's Paradise ?
Why is the place so clean, the people so well housed
and fed ? Why are the little folks so hale in face,
so neat in dress ? All voices answer me that these
unusual, though most desirable, conditions in a village,

THE WORKMAN'S PARADISE. 327

spring from a strict enforcement of the law pro
hibiting the sale of drink.

The men of Vermont have adopted that Act
which is known to English jesters as the Maine Liquor
Law. The adversaries of 'jolly good ale ' command
a large majority of votes. They wish to drink water,
and will not let other men drink beer. They come of a
stout old border stock, with great capacities for self-
denial, and a rage for saving their weaker brethren
from the whisky-jug. Being virtuous, they abolish
cakes and ale, and will not suffer ginger to be hot in
the mouth. ' We live,' they say, ' in a common
wealth where every man is free ; but we have only
one law for all, and what we like to do you shall be
bound to do ! ' Hurrah for a majority of votes !

The Maine Liquor Law is carried out with
all the rigour of an Arctic frost. Not a public-
house now exists in St. Johnsbury, nor can a mug
of beer or glass of wine be purchased openly by
a guest to whom wine and beer are portions of
his daily food. No citizen is allowed to vend in
toxicating drink on any pretext or to any person.
In the village we have two guest-houses for the
entertainment of such as come and go our way — St.
Johnsbury House and Avenue House. We avoid

328 WHITE CONQUEST.

the words tavern and hotel, as savouring of bad
old times, when every man might drink himself
into a mad-house and his children into a jail. Our
tavern is a house. I use the form guest-house from
the close resemblance of my lodgings, in the way of
meat and drink, to a guest-house on the Dwina and
the Nile. It is a water-drinking house. Among
the merits of the place, put out on cards to catch the
eyes of tourists in the Vermont uplands, these two
virtues are set forth : first there is dry air to breathe,
and next there is good water to drink. Elsewhere
one hostelry is famous for trout, a second for terra
pin, a third for madeira, a fourth for champagne.
Down South no hostelry has ever yet thought of
advertising the quality of its pump. But in St.
Johnsbury the well-spirits reign. An American
poet of another mind has sung :

If ere I kneel me down to pray

My face shall turn towards St. Peray.

But such a poet would persuade no man to follow
his lead on Sleepers' Creek. Though lodging in the
rooms which echoed to the mirth of Captain Barney,
we are now the votaries of a severer saint than St.
Peray.

329

CHAPTEE XXXII.

SOBER BY LAW.

No bar, no dram-shop, no saloon defiles St.
Johnsbury ; nor is there, I am told, a single gaming-
hell or house of ill-repute. So far as meets the eye
this boast is true. Once, in my walks, I fancy
there may be an opening in the armour of these
Good Templars. Turning from the foreign street,
where Jacques is somewhat careless of his fence, and
Pat is tolerant of the cess-pool at his door, I read
a notice calling on the passer-by to enter ' the
sporting and smoking bazaar.' Here, surely, there
must lurk some spice of dissipation. Passing down
the steps into this c sporting and smoking bazaar,' I
see a large vault, running below Avenue House, and
conjure up visions of Gothe's wine cellar in Leip
zig, the Heiliger Geist in Mainz, and our own supper-
rooms in Covent Garden ; but on dropping down the
steps of this ' smoking and sporting bazaar,' I find

330 WHITE CONQUEST.

myself in a big empty room ; the floor clean, the
walls bright, and a small kiosk in one corner for the
sale of cigars and cigarettes, at which a nice-looking
matron waits for customers, who are slow to come.

' They suffer you to sell tobacco, madam ? '

' Yes, Sir, for the present,' sighs the patient
creature ; ' some of them want to put down the sale
of tobacco and snuff, as they have put down that of
beer and gin ; a lecturer was here last week ; and
in a year or so they may get a majority of votes.'

* Your trade will then be gone ? '

' Yes, clearly.'

' You may be the last of all your race ? '

' Well, some one must be last in everything, I
guess.'

I leave her with the full conviction that there
lurks no large amount of wickedness in this sporting
and smoking bazaar.

The case seems hard to men who have not
helped to pass the Bill. So much depends on your
consent ! A necklace is a pretty thing to wear ;
but not a necklace such as Gurth, the Saxon, wore—
fixed round his throat by force.

For my part, I have passed through many coun-

SOBER BY LAW. 331

tries and been broken to the ways of many men. I
have eaten ice with a Druse of Lebanon, and sucked
a water-melon with a Kirghiz chief; drunk quass
with the Archimandrite of Pechersk, and gulped the
dregs of a tank with an Arab Sheikh ; tasted, un
wittingly, the saltness of the Dead Sea, and shrunk
with loathing from the nauseous ooze of Bitter
Creek. I have lapped the Nile, and lingered by the
fountains of Loja. In the absence of wine I can
drink water with a Good Templar, and live in com
fort on tea and milk. But an Oxonian near me,
reared on foot-ball ground and cricket-field, asks for
beer.

' Can you get me a pint of bitter ale ? '

It is a crucial test, and I regard the waiter's face
while seeming not to notice him.

' Well, Sir, it may be got.'

' Then bring me some at once.'

' Yes, Sir, but not at once. The thing will take
some time. I have to send for it.'

' To send for it — where from ? '

' From the Commissioner's.'

4 Pray, who is this Commissioner ? '

' Who is this Commissioner ! '

332 WHITE CONQUEST.

' Yes, yes, excuse me for the question ; I am but
a stranger in these parts/

' Why, Sir, the Commissioner is the town officer
appointed by law to sell poisons, as I hear druggists
are licensed in London to sell aconite and arsenic.'

' Then get me a pint bottle of the poison called
Bass's Pale Ale.5

The waiter disappears ; a moment afterwards
he returns with pen and paper in his hand.

' You must be kind enough to write an order
for the ale, and sign your name to it for record.'

' Sign my name for what ? '

6 For record ; the Commissioner is bound to
enter the name and address of every person to whom
he sells a bottle of beer.'

4 Then I shall have a place in the archives of St.
Johnsbury for my sins ? '

4 The ale will certainly be posted against you,'
he rejoins ; saying which he pops out of doors.
Dinner is nearly done when he comes back, laden
with a couple of pint bottles.

' You've been long in coming, but your Commis
sioner seems to be a liberal fellow. We require a
pint ; he sends a quart.'

SOBER BY LAW. 333

' The fact is, Sir,' the waiter answers with a leer,
4 it's ray doing. There are two of you ; a pint is little
enough for one ; and our Commissioner dare not
serve you a second time to-day. I told him the order
meant one pint for each.'

My own enquiries satisfy me that the man is
right. Intoxicating drinks are classed with poisons,
such as laudanum and arsenic ; but as poisons may
be needed in a civilized country, under a scientific
system of medicine, laudanum and arsenic are per
mitted to be sold in every civilized city. Such is
here the case with brandy, beer, and wine, which are
all carefully registered in books and kept under lock
and key. These poisons are doled out, at the dis
cretion of this officer, in small quantities, very much
as deadly-nightshade and mix vomica are doled out
by a London druggist.

1 Cannot you get a bottle of cognac for your pri
vate use? ' I ask Colonel Fairbanks, manager of the
scale factories.

c I can write my order for a pint of cognac ; it
will be sent to me, of course ; but my order for it
will be filed, and the delivery entered on the public
books for everyone to see.'

334 WHITE CONQUEST.

' You find that system rather inquisitorial, eh ? '
' Well, no ; it is intended for the common good,
and everyone submits to what is for the good of
all. We freely vote the law, and freely keep the
law. But for myself the rule is a dead letter, as
no intoxicating drink ever enters my house.'

In going through the scale mills I notice several
classes of artisans. Five hundred men are toiling
in the various rooms. The work is mostly hard ;
in some departments very hard. The heat is often
great. From seven till twelve, from one till seven,
the men are at their posts. The range of heat
and cold is trying ; for the summer suii is fierce,
the winter frost is keen. Your ordinary citizen
cannot live through the summer heats without
a trip to Lake Champlain and the Adirondack
Mountains. Yet the men engaged in these manu
factories are said to drink no beer, no whisky, and
no gin. Drinking and smoking are not allowed on
the premises. Such orders might be meant for dis
cipline ; but I am told that these five hundred work
men never taste a drop of either beer or gin. Their
drink is water, their delight is tea. Yet everyone
assures me that they work well, enjoy good health,

SOBER BY LA IV. 335

and live as long as persons of their class who are
engaged on farms.

4 These men,' I ask, ' who rake the furnaces,
carry the burning metals, and stand about the
crucibles — can they go on all day without beer?'

' They never taste a drop, and never ask to have
a drop. There is a can of water near them ; they
like the taste of water better than the fume of ale,
and do their work more steadily without such fume.'

In fact, I find that these mechanics are the
warmest advocates of a prohibitive liquor law.
They voted for it in the outset ; they have voted
for it ever since. Each year of trial makes them
more fanatical. Since the Act came into force, many
new clauses have been added by the State Legislature.
Party questions turn on this liquor law, and these
intelligent workmen always vote for those who
promise to extend its operations. They would
gladly crush the sale of intoxicating liquors once for
all, and I am led to fancy with my friend, the Good
Templar of Cincinnati, that some of them would
not hesitate to make the sale a capital offence.

' You see,' says Colonel Fairbanks, 6 we are a
nervous and vehement race. Our air is dry and

336 WHITE CONQUEST.

quick ; our life an eager and unsleeping chase .
When we work, we work hard ; when we drink,
we drink deep. It is natural that when we abstain,
we should abstain with rigour.'

' Are there no protests on the part of moderate
men?'

'None, or next to none. As year and year
go by, more persons come to see the benefits of
our rule. The men who formerly drank the most,
are now the staunchest friends of our reform. These
men, who used to dress in rags, are growing rich.
Many of them live in their own houses. They all
attend church, and send their boys and girls to
school.'

Such facts are not to be suppressed by shrugs
and sneers. It is an easy thing to sneer, arid some
unconscious comedy turns up at every corner to
provoke a laugh.

' Oblige me,' I entreat the sober successor of
Captain Barney, when going to bed, ' with a glass
of soda-water.'

' Sorry, Sir, we have no soda water in the house.'

' Then a glass of Selzer- water or Congress-
water ? '

SOBER BY LAW. 337

c Sorry, Sir ; none in the house.'

' Why not P Are these intoxicating drinks pro
hibited by law ? '

' Oh, no, they sell them at the druggists' shops.'

' Then please to get me some from the druggist's
shop.'

'Excuse me, Sir, it is too late. The druggist's
shop is closed.'

The fact is so. I ask my host why he does not
keep such things as soda-water and selzer-water
for sale.

'We have no customers for them. Guess it's
people who drink brandy that ask for soda-water!'

Should a tipsy stranger be taken in the street
(as sometimes happens) he is seized like a stray
donkey, run into a pound, and kept apart till he has
slept away his dram. An officer then enquires
where he got his drink. On telling, he is set free,
and the person who sold the liquor is arrested, tried,
and punished for the man's offence. The vendor,
not the buyer, is responsible for this breach of moral
order. It is just the same, whether the person
supplying the liquor sells it or gives it ; so that a man
who entertains his friends at dinner has to stand

VOL. n. z

33* WHITE CONQUEST.

before the magistrate and answer for the conduct of
his guests. Imagine how this rule is likely to
promote good fellowship round the mahogany -tree !

Such drawbacks may be taken off the sum of
public benefits conferred on Vermont by the
Liquor Law. What remains? The Workman's
Paradise remains : a village which has all the as
pect of a garden ; a village in which many of the
workmen are owners of real estate ; a village of five
thousand inhabitants, in which the moral order is
even more conspicuous than the material prosperity ;
a village in which every man accounts it his highest
duty and his personal interest to observe the law.
No authority is visible in St. Johnsbury. No police
man walks the streets — on ordinary days there is
nothing for a policeman to do. Six constables are
enrolled for duty, but the men are all at work in the
factories, and only don their uniforms on special
days to make a little show.

Some part of these beneficent results must be
assigned to the platform scale, a special industry
which seeks out quick and steady men, and by
rewarding them teyond the ordinary rate of wages
helps them to grow rich. A house and garden

SOBER BY LAW. 339

steadies a man as if by magic. But the law of
abstinence comes in to harden and complete the
work.

On looking up and down the streets, so lovely in
the moonlight, weighing the visible results against
my lack of soda-water, I sip my bit of broken ice,
and go to bed with a not unkindly feeling towards
the principle of the Vermont Law.

340 WHITE CONQUEST

CHAPTER XXXIII.

ILLITERACY IN AMERICA.

IN Europe we hear so much about the public
schools of America, that people are apt to fall into
three distinct mistakes about American education.
In the first place, they are apt to think there is an
American school system, as there is an English
school system : in the second place, they are apt
to assume that American boys and girls are all at
school, like Swiss boys and girls ; in the third place,
they are apt to conclude that American boys and
girls are well taught as German boys and girls are
well taught.

All these conclusions are erroneous, There is
no American school system, as in England. Children
are nowhere forced to be at school, as in Switzerland.
Education is not universal and efficient, as in Germany.

With two exceptions, the republic, as a re
public, pays no attention to the training of her

ILLITERACY IN AMERICA. 341

citizens. These two exceptions are the military and
naval academies ; the first at West Point in New
York, the second at Annapolis in Maryland. These
schools are small in size, and only touch the upper
ranks of the public service. Training for the or
dinary citizen is left by the republic to her several
States, by each State to her several counties, and by
each county, as a rule, to her several townships.
Where a township has a city within her limits, she
mostly leaves the training of that city to the citizens.
So far from there being an American school system
in America, it is not true to say there is a Pennsyl-
vanian school system in Pennsylvania, or a New York
school system in New York. There is an Excelsior
system, and a Deadly Swamp system. On the Gulf of
Mexico they have one system, in the Eocky Moun
tains a second system, in the New England region a
third system. It is hardly an abuse of words to say
there are as many school systems as there are town
ships in the United States.

In only five States out of thirty-nine is there a
law in favour of compulsory attendance at school.
These five States are New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Michigan, and New York ; but even in

342 WHITE CONQUEST.

these States the law is nowhere carried out with
rigour, and the story of illiteracy in these five States
is very dark.

In New Hampshire seven thousand persons are
unable to read, nearly ten thousand persons are
unable to write. In Connecticut twenty thousand
persons cannot read, thirty thousand persons cannot
write. In Michigan thirty-four thousand persons
canaot read, fifty-three thousand persons cannot
write. In New York State there are a hundred and
sixty-three thousand persons who cannot read, nearly
two hundred and forty thousand persons who cannot
write !

These ignorant folks are not all strangers ; Irish
labourers, German boors, and African rifT-raff
Many of them are natives of the soil, born under
the Eepublic, in a land of public schools. In New
York, with her compulsory law of school attendance,
more than seventy thousand of the natives cannot
sign their names. In Massachusetts and Connecticut
the tables of illiteracy are not so swollen as in New
York : yet in Connecticut more than five thousand,
in Massachusetts nearly eight thousand of the natives
cannot write. In Michigan, a newly-settled State,

ILLITERACY IN AMERICA. 343

the two classes, natives and foreigners, are nearly
equal in ignorance, there being twenty-two thousand
natives to thirty thousand foreigners who cannot sign
their names. One of the New Haven inspectors says
that forty-one children in a hundred fail to attend
school ; so that nearly half the people in that noble
city — one of the leading lights of civilization — are
growing up in the moral darkness of Nigerines and
Kickapoos. Texas has tried the compulsory system ;
but, having failed to get her lads and lasses into
school by force, has gone back to her old plan of
letting everybody do as he likes.

No other State or Territory in the Union cares
to try a scheme of public teaching which requires
the vigour of New England teachers and super
intendents to conduct, and which three of the six
New England States have either never adopted or
have set aside. Some States require certificates of"
training, to be produced by parents and guardians,,
but these testimonials of proficiency are said to be-
hardly worth a straw. Americans who know their
country as I know my house and garden tell me
that the young generation of Americans are growing
up more ignorant than their fathers thirty years ago.

344 WHITE CONQUEST.

In 1870 the number of persons in America who
could not read was reported as more than four
millions five hundred thousand ; of those who could
not write more than five million six hundred
thousand souls.

Such facts are not explained by the theory of a
great rush of illiterates from Europe or even from
Asia.

Some illiterates come from Liverpool, Ham
burg, and Hong-Kong, no doubt, but they are not
enough to darken the tables of illiteracy very
much. The German immigrants, as a rule, can
read and write. The Mongol immigrants, as a rule,
can read and write. I have never seen a male
Chinese who could not read, and very few who
could not write — in their own tongue. Out of
sixty-three thousand Chinese reported in the census,
six thousand are returned as illiterate, but in many
towns, probably in most towns, illiteracy was taken
, by the census marshals to mean inability to read and
write English — a rule under which Victor Hugo and
Father Secchi would be classed as illiterate. Of
course the poorer class of Irish help to swell the list.
Pat is the ' bad lot ' of American statists ; for with

ILLITERACY IN AMERICA. 3^5

all his mirth and fire — his poetry, his sentiment, and
his humour — he has few of the mechanical advantages
of education. He can only make his mark, and
swell the black list of the marshal's returns. Yet a
vast majority of the illiterates in the census are
American-born.

Out of the five million six hundred thousand
persons in the Republic who cannot read and write
only three quarters of a million are of foreign birth.

Of course, again, the Negroes count in these
black lists ; but Negroes are now citizens, with poli
tical rights. They count two millions and three-
fourths. Red men and Yellow men add a little
to the dark totals ; yet, when all the Red, Yellow,
and Black ignorance is deducted, there remain, as
representing pure White ignorance, gross and pagan
ignorance, no less than two million eight hundred
thousand souls. Of this army of White barbarians
in America, the census shows that more than two
millions are American-born !

Such figures stun the mind. On looking into
details, the enquirer is staggered to perceive
that the older and richer States are no better
educated than the rest. Nobody would expect to

346 WHITE CONQUEST.

find a shining literary light in Texas or New Mexico ;
but almost everyone would fancy that New York
and Pennsylvania would in point of common schools
hold their heads extremely high. Yet New York
and Pennsylvania rank among the lowest of the pure
White States. In New York there are nearly two
hundred and forty thousand persons who cannot read
and write, and Pennsylvania follows closely on her
neighbour's heels. Virginia is, however, the greatest
sinner. In a population of one million and a
quarter she numbers nearly half-a-million of illite
rates. Georgia, Tennessee, and the two Carolinas
follow in her wake ; Virginia, being the recognised
leader of her Southern sisters. Whether she goes
right or wrong, these States seem ready to go with
Virginia into right or wrong.

To sum up all. The native Americans who cannot
read and write amount to nearly five millions !

347

CHAPTEE XXXIV.

AMERICA AT SCHOOL.

SOME measures have been taken to check an evil
which is threatening to reduce White settlers to the
level of Creeks and Cherokees, and to convert the
Potomac and Savannah into American Nigers and
Senegals. These measures are partly general, partly
local ; partly inquisitorial, partly remedial ; but in
every case they have improvement as their aim
and end.

Pour years ago, Americans were living in a
dream. They knew that here and there a blotch
defiled the fair face of their country, but they
fancied that on the whole their ' model republic, '
was a shining light in popular education. Seven or
eight years ago, some earnest watchers over
American progress hinted that through the ravages
of war, and through the poverty brought on several
of the States, America had not only ceased

348 WHITE CONQUEST.

to make way, but was actually falling back in the
race. Enquiry was provoked. The facts produced
led to fresh enquiry. Every one was struck, and
not a few were stunned.

That a republic pre-supposes an instructed people
is not only a truism in politics, but is understood to be
so by every writer and speaker in the United States.

' Eepublics can only stand on the education and
enlightenment of the people,' says President Grant.

4 The stability and welfare of our institutions
must necessarily depend for their perpetuity on
education,' says Columbus Delano, Secretary of the
Interior.

4 The existence of a republic, unless all its citizens
are educated, is an admitted impossibility,' says
General Eaton, Commissioner of Education.

Congress passed a bill, establishing a Bureau of
Education at Washington, for the purpose of col
lecting facts and letting the people know the truth.
General Eaton was placed at the head of this
Bureau, and for four years he had made an annual
report ; each year with safer data, each year also
with a sharper note of warning. For the moment,
he can do no more than publish facts. America is

AMERICA AT SCHOOL. 349

not yet prepared for a great and general act ; and
General Eaton has to leave his theory and his facts
to speak.

His theory is — that a republic cannot live unless
the whole of her citizens are instructed men.

His fact is — that in the United States, five
million six hundred thousand persons are unable to
read and write.

More has been done by states and counties to
arrest the downward motion. But the case was
always bad, and the war made it everywhere worse.
In some States, the school system became a wreck ;
in every State it suffered from the strife. This
wreck is being repaired, but many years will pass
away before the country can recover from the
ravages of her civil war.

In the States lying north of the Potomac, the
wreck was less than in those lying south of that
river. Xew York and the six New England States
are doing better than the rest ; doing as well as
England and Belgium, if not so well as Switzerland
and Germany. Pennsylvania lags behind her
northern rival, though she shows a good record in
comparison with her Southern neighbours, Maryland

350 WHITE CONQUEST.

and Delaware. Maryland has never been in love
with public schools, and she is taking to them now
under a sense of shame. Her coloured schools are
few in number and poor in quality. Delaware
refuses, as a State, to recognise the duty of public
instruction. She has neither State provision, nor
County provision, for coloured schools. Such
teaching as she gets, is gotten from her priests.
Knowing these facts, need any one marvel that
Delaware is one of the darkest corners of the United
States ?

In the Lake regions, the young States of Michigan,
Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, have a
more uniform system, which is every year in course
of improvement. These States have elementary
schools in every township, with a secondary school
in almost every county, crowned by a State uni
versity, with classical and scientific chairs. Ohio
and Illinois have a system of their own.

On the Pacific slope, with the exception of
California, public training is much neglected.
Oregon, Dacota, and Nevada scarcely enter into the
civilised system ; Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico
stand bevond it. In the Eiver States, Nebraska,

AMERICA AT SCHOOL. 351

Kansas, and Missouri, there are common schools,
leading up through secondary schools to State
universities, as in Iowa and Michigan. In all these
sections, there is close and constant effort on the
part of some, weakened by indifference on the part
of many, to give the people that aliment, without
which, according to President Grant and Secretary
Delano, the republic cannot live.

Yet, after all, the main interest in this intellec
tual struggle lies in the South, so long neglected
by the ruling race ; and in the Southern States, the
chief scene of conflict is Virginia.

The new race of Virginians are facing the demon
of Illiteracy with the same high spirit as they showed
in fronting the great material power of their
enemies in the war.

Ten years ago there were no such public schools
in Eichmond as there were in Boston, Philadelphia,
and New York. A lady of the First Families could
not send her boys and girls to an institution where
they might have to mingle with ' white trash.' It
is the sentiment of a ruling class, common to all
countries, not more obvious in Eichmond and Ealeigh
than in Geneva and Lausanne, in Brighton and

352 WHITE CONQUEST.

Ilarrogate. A society of gentry tends by habit to
become a caste. No teachers of the higher grades
found welcome in Virginia, and the science of
pedagogy was abandoned to the Thwackums and
Squeers. A private school, the lowest type of
boarding-school, was the only school thought good
enough for the girls and boys of White citizens in
[Richmond. But for the higher culture found in the
domestic circle, where the men were mostly gentle
men, the women mostly ladies, the state of learning
in Virginia would have fallen to the level of Italy
and Spain.

Four years ago the Massachusetts plan was
introduced. Two able officers, Virginia-born,
Colonel Binford and the Hon. W. W. Buffner, are
placed in charge of this new system. Many schools
have been erected, and many teachers found. A
free system, seeking to impart a sound, uniform, and
general education to all classes, the Massachusetts
plan has become so popular and acceptable that
the private schools are everywhere dying out. The
teachers in the public schools are good, not only
better, as a class, than any we can get in London,
but better than I find in Vermont and Xew Hamp-

AMERICA AT SCHOOL. 353

shire. For these teachers in Virginia are nearly all
ladies, not in sex only, but in birth and train
ing ; with the grace and accent, manner and appear
ance, of women whose mothers were ladies. Poverty
at first, patriotism afterwards, disposed these women
to adopt the art of teaching as a profession. They
are fairly paid, and, once the false shame of taking
honest money for honest work is overcome, every
thing goes well with them at school and home.

The system works by an internal force. A real
lady, daughter of a gentleman, ranking with the First
Families, accepts a teacher's desk, and asks her friends
to send their girls to school. No one now objects.
Where Minnie teaches, Minnie's younger sisters,
cousins, and acquaintance can attend the class. A
better sentiment conies in ; class sentiment, it may
be ; but the social forces here begin to act for good
instead of evil. Free schools have become a fashion, and
some of the best culture in Virginia is being devoted
to the task of teaching in these Eichmond schools.

The schools are mixed, not as to colour,' but as
to sex. Boys and girls learn together, with a young
lady for instructress. In one excellent school we
find Grace Alston, a delicate girl, beautiful as a

VOL. II. A A

354 WHITE CONQUEST.

seraph,with a pure English accent and a sweet English
manner, teaching a class of boys and girls, the boys
as tall and some of them nearly as old as herself.

'Do you like the method of mixed classes —
having boys and girls in the same room, competing
in the same lessons ? '

c Yes,' replies the young lady, ' I find the mixed
system better for both sexes than the separate system.
The boys strengthen the girls, and the girls soften
the boys.'

' Have you no trouble with these big fellows ? '

' No ; the bigger boys are easier to control than
the lesser ones ; they have more sense at fifteen than
at ten, and feel more shame in doing wrong ; es
pecially in the presence of a lady. The sense of
chivalry comes in.'

355

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SITUATION.

FROM New York to San Francisco, from Chicago to
New Orleans, every town and hamlet in America is
suffering from panic ; a loose, unscientific term,
explaining nothing, and raising false hopes. A panic
is supposed to be an accident. Accidents come and
go, and, like the winds and waves, are treated as
phenomena beyond control. What cannot be cured,
we say, must be endured.

In what respects our personal good we act on
wiser instincts. No one talks of gout as an acci
dent, of surfeit as an accident. When Nature checks
our excesses by a twinge of pain, we know that we
have done wrong, and take her warning as a guide.
Suppose this panic in America is no other than a
natural pause and stop ?

What are the secrets of American growth?
People and Land. Up to this date there have been

A A 2

356 WHITE CONQUEST.

unfailing supplies of settlers and homesteads ; set
tlers apparently beyond number ; homesteads appa
rently beyond limit. Europe sends the people,
America gives the land. Are these two sources of
supply inexhaustible ?

First, take the People.

Since the War of Independence closed, Europe
has poured into America more than seven million
souls. When the people were counted in 1870, five
million five hundred thousand persons were returned
as born on foreign soil, and nearly eleven millions
confessed to having either father or mother born on
foreign soil. One in seven was therefore a stranger

O D

by birth, nearly one in three a stranger by blood.
No other foreign country has so many strangers on
her soil.

Out of an aggregate approaching eight millions,
who have come from all quarters of the globe into
America, more than five millions have come from
the British Islands and British America ; nearly two
millions and a half from Germany, including Prussia
and Austria, but excluding Hungary and Poland.
France and Sweden follow at a distance. Of the
non-European nations, China has supplied the largest

THE SITUATION. ' 357

number ; after her come the West Indies and Mex
ico. But the supplies of settlers from Asia, Africa,
Australia, and America (excluding men of English
racej do riot amount to one man in every dozen
men. Thus, the planting of America has been
mainly done by persons sailing from English and
German ports.

Are these migrations from English and German
ports likely to go forward on the same grand scale?
No one dreams of such a thing. By many signs —
some general and matter of record, others particular
and matter of inference — we see an end of these
enormous supplies of English and German settlers in
America.

For forty years (1820 — 60) the rate of emigra
tion from English ports rose from decade to decade.
In the first decade, one hundred and fifty-two thou
sand persons entered the Eepublic from these ports.
In the next decade, the numbers swelled to nearly
six hundred thousand. In the third decade, they
reached seventeen hundred thousand. In the fourth
decade, they rose to two millions and a half. Then
came a check. For two years the numbers fell ;
not only on the old rate of increase, but in the

358 WHITE CONQUEST.

actual figures of the list. When war broke out, high
bounties and good rations tempted many a poor
fellow to come out ; and while the Republic kept on
spending a million of dollars every day on men and
powder, swarms of the more jovial and reckless Irish
flocked into New York. Yet, even under war ex
citement, the old number of arrivals at New York
was never reached. The springs from which the
increase came were drying up.

Nothing was then done, and nothing is now done,
by English law, to check this movement of our
people towards America. A right to emigrate is
treated by our magistrates as one of the indefeasible
rights of man. Science and policy have combined to
favour emigration from our shores. Steam has
made the passage cheap and swift. A better class .
of vessels and a closer system of inspection have
reduced the perils of a voyage across the Atlantic to
a bagatelle. Societies help the poor to get away.
The last legal restraint on the free movement of
English-born persons — the old law of nationality
(once a Briton, always a Briton) — is abolished ;
so that Saxon and Celt may now become American
citizens, and side with their adopted country against

THE SITUATION. 359

their native land, without fear of being regarded
as traitors. Yet, in spite of all that science, policy
and charity can do, the movement slackens. More
than one experienced skipper tells me the tide has
turned. Shoals of emigrants are going back to
Europe, and still greater shoals would go back if
they had the means. From Portland to New
Orleans our consulates are besieged by applicants
for free passage, which our consuls have no moneys
to provide. The St. George Societies, which exist in
almost every city in America, . keeping alive the
good old English sentiment, are pestered day and
night by persons eager to return. At every port of
departure for Liverpool, men may be seen imploring
leave to work their passage over the Atlantic.
Almost every vessel has her steerage full.

Whether as many persons go back as come out,
we cannot learn ; for no report is published of the
departing masses. But my eyes and ears inform me
that the men who are seeking to get home again
are men of all trades and districts, rural folk and
urban folk — hedgers and ditchers, skilled mechanics,
small farmers, Irish labourers, domestic servants, and
bankers' clerks. Our Government does nothing

360 WHITE CONQUEST.

I

to promote this reflux of the tide. An emigrant, as
such, receives no help in getting back ; yet thou
sands and tens of thousands are now fighting their
way home to Liverpool and Cork. Ten years ago
you never met a Munster peasant or an Essex
labourer who had been in America. America was a
paradise from which no Munster peasant, no Essex
labourer, ever dreamt of coming back. To-day
there is another tale to tell. In every hamlet round
Cork you find peasants who have tried Chicago and
St. Louis. In the neighbourhood of Ongar and
Brentwood you hear labourers talk of the Kansas
crickets. They have trod the land of promise, and
have slipt away to their ancient homes.

Germany appears to offer no richer crop of
future settlers than the British Isles. Indeed, she offers
less ; for Prince von Bismarck is directing his atten
tion to the cause of this Teutonic movement — so
important to the Fatherland — and seeking to remove
that cause.

Like England, Germany made her supreme effort
of emigration in one decade, after which her move
ments seemed to dwindle of themselves. Inthefirstten
years of the same period (1820-60), Germany, inclu-

THE SITUATION. 361

ding Prussia and Austria, sent out less than eight
thousand souls ; in the second ten years she sent out
a hundred and fifty thousand souls ; in the third ten
years she sent out four hundred and thirty
thousand souls ; and in the fourth ten years she sent
out nine hundred, and fifty thousand souls. Then
came her check. During the next three years her
contributions fell. The civil war called new forces into
play ; and for a time the German emigration swelled.
Yet, here again, even under the temptation of high
bounties and big rations, the figures of 1853 and
1854 were never reached. The springs appeared
to be drying up.

The new Germany is not old Germany, and Prussia,
as her leader, is not looking on this movement of her
people with the old Austrian helplessness. Bismarck has
no mind to see his men of strong limbs and active brains
transferred to other soils. Too many, he perceives,
are gone. ' Tell me,' said a great Pomeranian land
owner to Ban croft, the historian, ' about your
country ; for next to my own province, I am more
concerned about it than any other part of the earth ;
since out of every hundred persons born on my
estate, twenty-five are now in America.' That Pome-

362 WHITE CONQUEST.

ranian district is not far from Varzin, where the
German Chancellor lives. Yet Prussia has not fed
the tide of emigration much ; her contribution for the.
whole forty years (1820-60)berng less than a hundred
thousand souls. The floods have come from Hessen,
Baden, and the badly-governed duchies, where Fritz
and Karl had each a prince of his own to rule over him.
These things are gone, and with them some of the
pests which drove brave men and true patriots from
their native land.

Bismarck, as the American Minister in Berlin
reports, is looking at this question with a statesman's
eye. He sees the people moving, but he also sees
that they are stirred by causes not to be removed by
passports and police.

' We have no right to interfere with a man's
liberty to seek his bread elsewhere. A strong
desire has seized the minds of many persons to seek a
new home, where they can get more food and better
shelter for themselves. We may regret, we cannot
condemn, this wish. The right to a free change of
domicile is sacred, and we cannot say the principle
is wrong because a man chooses to exchange his
domicile on the Ehine for a domicile on the

THE SITUATION. 363

Missouri.' Yet the Prince is not a man to leave
such things alone. He deals with emigration as
with other matters.

' We must begin,' his Home Minister lately said
in Parliament, ' by passing laws which will make
the people's homesteads more like home. We must
improve our mills, our roads, our railways, our
canals. We must build better cottages, open up
industries, and set up savings-banks. We want to
stop emigration, and we shall do so, not by limiting
the right of free movement, but by a whole system
of measures for raising the condition of our labouring
classes.'

Under such a system Germany is not likely to
send out many more millions to America,

Next take the Land,

If we can trust the facts and figures in General
Hazen's Eeports, the supply of land is no more in
exhaustible than the supply of settlers. Old and
venerable fictions, such as Irving painted and Bryant
sang, are swept away by engineers arid surveyors.
When Louisiana was purchased from France, the
district then acquired by the Republic was described
as practically boundless. Xo one knew how far it ran

364 WHITE CONQUEST.

out west, hardly how far it ran up north ; yet every
acre of that region is now owned, and under such
cultivation as suits a poor and swampy soil. So,
when Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas were in
corporated. No one had drawn a line about Kansas
and Nebraska. These regions were supposed to offer
homes to any number of inhabitants, thirty millions
each at least, with a farm for every family. In these four
states the land is already taken up ; at least such land
as anybody cares to fence and register. The greater
part of Kansas and Nebraska, and enormous sections
of Dakota and Colorado, are unfit for settlement.
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah are mountain
plateaus, high and barren for the greater part, suited,
as a rule, for nothing more than cattle-runs, con
ducted on a large scale, too vast for anyone but a
great capitalist to occupy. On the Pacific Slope, from
Washington to Upper California, no ' wild land/
remains, and not a great deal of available public
land. According to Hazen's Reports, the same rule
holds good in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
Near the Mississippi, the lands are damp enough ;
but as you march towards the Pacific they become
high and arid. Water and wood are scarce, the

THE SITUATION. 365

winter is severe. A valley here and there is fertile,
and oases in the desert may be found, as at St.
George on the Eio Virgen, but the country as a
whole is parched and bleak. In Utah and Colo
rado nature is less forbidding, but the surface of
land fit for ordinary industry is small ; while to the
north of these regions the soil is poor, the rainfall
light, the herbage scanty, and the cold severe.

General Hazen's conclusion is that the Eepublic
has very little land, of the kind that tempts good
settlers to remove, now left within her frontiers.

If this officer is right in hisfacts — and high autho:
rities tell me he is right — the end of an exceptional
state of things is nigh. America must lean in future
on her own staff and stand by her own strength ;
expecting no more help from Europe than England
expects from Germany, or Italy expects from
France.

366 WHITE CONQUEST

CHAPTER XXXVI.

OUTLOOK.

Is there no writing on the wall ?

The wounds inflicted on America by the civil war
were fresh and bleeding, even before they were re
opened by the grave events in New Orleans. The
two sides seem as bitter as they were a month before
the fall of Richmond. Cincinnati, where I write
these words, is a great city, chief market of a Free
State, looking across the Ohio river into the streets
and squares of Covington, her sister of Kentucky.
These cities lie as close together as Brooklyn and
New York, as Lambeth and Westminster. They
are connected by a bridge and by a dozen ferries.
Trains and street cars cross the river night and day ;
the citizens buy and sell, dine and house, marry and
live with each other, like neighbours and Christians ;
yet a plague like the Black Death has broken out
between Covington and Cincinnati, and the fanatics

OUTLOOK. 367

on both sides of the Ohio river hate their neighbours
with the dark and strained malignity which springs
from no other source but fratricidal war. Not many
minutes since, an aged and respected minister of the
Gospel called on me to gloat over the prospect of a
new war in the South. When I tried to rouse in
him some sense of proportion, so that, in seeking
full justice for his African brother, he might not
wholly forget the rights of his European brother, he
expressed his hope and conviction that the White
race w^ould never again prevail against the Black.

' The coloured people of the South/ said this
minister of the gospel, in amazing ignorance of the
facts in Eichmond and Ealeigh, Charlestown and
New Orleans, c are saving their money, putting their
children to school, and doing the duties of good
citizens ; while their old tyrants are wallowing in
riot and drunkenness, threatening our country with
a new secession, and lifting up their heads against
the will of God. It never will be well with America
until these gentle and pious coloured people have
obtained a fixed and lasting mastery in the Southern
States/

Yet there are signs that this bad state of feeling

368 . WHITE CONQUEST.

is becoming more and more confined to circles,
coteries, and clubs. Massachusetts has invited
deputations from Charleston, Atlanta, and New
Orleans to Boston, and the Southern soldiers have
been heartily received throughout the North. The
women, more tenacious and conservative than men,
have seized the occasion of this visit to hold out
hands to their Southern sisters. A meeting has
been called in Boston. A thousand ladies of Massa
chusetts, including nearly all the best and highest
ornaments of the State, have agreed to purchase
arid present mementoes of this visit of the Southern
chivalry to Boston, as a peace offering, to a thousand
ladies in the South, whose fathers and husbands
played a part in the war.

Americans begin to cry — ' close ranks ! '
The tale of a Hundred Years of White Progress
is a marvellous history.

The European races are spreading over every
continent, and mastering the isles and islets of every
sea. During those hundred years, some powers
have shot ahead, and some have slipt into the
second rank. Austria, a hundred years ago the
leading power in Europe, has been rent asunder

OUTLOOK. 369

and has forfeited her throne in Germany. Spain,
a hundred years ago the first colonial empire in the
world, has lost her colonies and conquests, and has
sunk into a third-rate power. France, which, little
more than a hundred years ago, possessed Canada,
Louisiana, the Mississippi valley, the island of Mau
ritius, and a stronghold in Hindoostan, has lost all
these possessions and exchanged her vineyards and
cornfields on the Ehine for the snows of Savoy and
the sands of Algiers. Piedmont and Prussia, on the
other hand, have sprung into the foremost rank of
nations. Piedmont has become Italy, with a capital
in Milan and Venice, Florence and Naples, as well
as in Eome. Still more striking and more glori
ous has been the growth of Prussia. A hundred
years ago Prussia was just emerging into notice as
a small but well-governed and hard-fighting country,
with a territory no larger than Michigan, and a
population considerably less than Ohio. In a
hundred years this small but well-governed and
hard-fighting Prussia has become the first military
power on earth. Eussia, during these hundred
years, has carried her arms into Finland, Grim
Tartary, the Caucasus and the Mohammedan Khan-

VOL. II. B B

370 WHITE CONQUEST.

ates, extending the White empire on the Caspian
and the Euxine, and along the Oxus and Jaxartes
into Central Asia. Vaster still have been the
marches and the conquests of Great Britain, her
command of the ocean giving her facilities which
are not possessed by any other power. Within
a hundred years, or thereabouts, she has grown
from a kingdom of ten millions of people into
an empire of two hundred and twenty millions,
with a territory covering nearly one-third of the
earth. Hardly less striking than the progress of
Eussia and England has been that of the United
States. Starting with a population no larger than
that of Greece, the Kepublic has advanced so
rapidly that in a hundred years she has become the
third power as to size of territory, the fourth as to
wealth of population, in the world.

Soil and population are the two prime elements
of power. Climate and fertility count for much ;
nationality and compactness count for more; but,
still, the natural basis of growth is land, the natural
basis of strength is population. Taking these two
elements together, the Chinese were, a hundred
years ago, the foremost family of mankind. They

OUTLOOK. 371

held a territory covering three millions of square
miles, and a population counting more than four
hundred million souls. But what a change has
taken place ! China has been standing still, while
England, Eussia, and America have been conquer
ing, planting, and annexing lands. Look at the
group of powers which occupy areas of surface
counting above a million square miles each : —

Great Britain . 8,000,000 square miles 224,000,000 souls.

China . . 3,000,000 „ 420,000,000 „

Eussia . . 7,000,000 „ 74,000,000 „

Unites States . 3,000,000 „ 40,000,000 „

The British Empire has a larger territory than
Eussia, a population second only to that of China.
America is treading in the footsteps of her parent,
taking up her own, as a loadstone takes up its own.
The greater draws, annexes, and absorbs the less.
Some months ago, Lord DuiTerin, Governor-General
of Canada, annexed the whole region, known and
unknown, stretching from the recognised frontier of
British America towards the North Pole ; and, some
months hence? either President Grant or his successor
at the White House, will annex the great provinces
of Lower California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, with

372 WHITE CONQUEST.

parts of Cinaloa, Cohahuila, and Nueva Leon, to the
United States. The present boundaries of the Ee-
public will be enlarged by land enough to form six
or seven new States, each State as big as New
York.

The surface of the earth is passing into Anglo-
Saxon hands.

Yet, glorious and inspiring as this story of White
Conquest is, the warning on the wall is brief and
stern. The end is not yet come. The peril of the
fight is not yet past, and the White successors of the
Creeks and Cherokees are unhappily still wasting
some of their best strength and noblest passion on
internal feuds.

Disaster in the past, menace in the future, warn
us to stand by our common race ; our blood, law,
language, science. We are strong, but we are not
immortal. A house divided against itself must fall.
If we desire to see our free institutions perish, it is
right that we should take the part of Red men, Black
men, and Yellow men against our White brethren.
If we wish to see order and freedom, science and
civilization preserved, we shall give our first thought

OUTLOOK. 373

to what improves the White mini's growth and in
creases the White man's strength.

So many foes are still afield that every White
man's cry should be ' Close ranks ! ' and when the
ranks are closed, but not till then — 'Eight in front
— march ! '

THE END.

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