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-3£6 cmxj&mar-.-A* - spade a i&&ame.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Plaint Speaking Is Both A Difficult And ...
_d-ustand full of vermiii . " Bui this was _lbtit a small sample of the miseries , of unfortunate missisOf the black eii
an " . " course wom _^ _finding a compassionate female heart -willing to listen to them— - _Tthe mothertooof little white children- —eame daify to her with
all manner of , afflictions , . Sent to field labour three weeks after their _confinements , and compelled to labour previous to the birth
of their children , until absolutely obliged to give in , these poor women suffer cruelly from weakness and disease . What more
natural , more inevitable , than that they should appeal with piteous tears to a married woman in a position of apparent authority over
them ? Mrs . Kemble appealed to her husband , appealed to the overseerwith the straightforward energy to which her age and
, position entitled her ; the result was that the women were flogged , and that her husband at last forbade her to be the medium of any
petition to him ; the reason of the prohibition being apparently not so much crueltyas a despair of mending or meddling in a
system of which the overseer , was the real head . The whole book is full of stories of this kind ; stories which any woman writhing
with pity and indignation would inevitably write to her female _friendstories which make the blood curdle from the frightful
_indelicacy ; , not of Mrs . Kemble's words , but of the conduct of the men in authority .
Put if the people are dirty , sick , and miserable , how fares it with the planters ? The house which the authoress occupied during
this winter , consisted of three small rooms , and three still smaller , which would be more appropriately designated as closets , a wooden
recess by way of pantry , and a kitchen detached from the dwelling —a mere wooden out-house , with no floor but the bare earth- —and
for furniture , a congregation of filthy negroes , who lounged in and out of it like hungry hounds , at all hours of the day and night ,
picking up such scraps of food as they could find about . Of three apartmentsone was sittingeatingand living roomsize 16 feet fey
, , , , 15 , * the walls plastered indeed , but neither painted . nor papered , and divided from the bedroom by a dingy wooden partition covered
all over with hooks , pegs * and nails , to which hats > caps , keys _* Sec , were suspended with graceful irregularity . The doors opened by
wooden latches , raised by means of small bits of packthread . Plow they shut is not describedas the shutting of a door is a process of
extremely rare occurrence , throughout the whole Southern country . And a similar shiftiness appears to have reigned in neighbouring
in _plantations human affairs ;—as which how should 2 _^ revent it s be the otherwise rich from ? There wholly is escap a solidarity ing the
results of the condition of their dependents ; and if , on the one hand , we find negro women driven like beasts , with less regard than
would be paid to female domestic animals ; on the other hand , we find two Southern planters proposing a duel in which they should
aim at white paper marks placed above each other hearts , and the
-3£6 Cmxj&Mar-.-A* - Spade A I&&Ame.
-3 £ 6 cmxj _& _mar-.-A _* spade a _i _&& _ame .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1863, page 346, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071863/page/58/
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