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Leader (1850-1860), 18th September 1852, Edition Country of 2, Page 20

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      Bambies In North And South America. Bumb...

      Here again we catch a glimpse of AN INDIAN WAREIOB . " 'The Elk that stands at bay' was a remarkably fine , well-made fellow , of about forty , with a chest like a buffalo bull . I persuaded him , in exchange for powder and paint , to part with his wardrobe , adorned with paintings of his most remarkable feats : and through the interpreter I made him describe the battles , which he did in the most animated manner , with a great deal of very clever pantomimic action , creeping on his knees through the lodge , when he wanted to show how he stole unawares on his enemies ; and then again drawing himself up to his

      full height , with the air of a prince , to show how he behaved when taken prisoner He gave me an account of a Chippeway he had scalped some five weeks before . His leg had been broken , and he lay perfectly helpless in the prairie , his friends having left him . He was perfectly unmoved when his enemy approached , but when he felt the knife round his top-knot , he shrank from it , which the Elk said was a pity , as otherwise he had shown himself a brave warrior . On _inepiiring whether he lived after being scalped , he said , ' No ; for that before he left him he passed his knife into his heart ; ' most likely quite slowly , and taunting him the whole time . "

      Innocence of savage life ! O Housseau ! Mr . Sullivan will not even admit : that the savages are " free . " " The cant about the trammels of civilization , and the perfect liberty and independence of the savage in his native state , roaming where he listeth , is all humbug ; nobody , in reality , has less liberty than the savage Indian . He cannot say , This country and manner of life does not suit me ; I will go and live elsewhere . The instant he sets his foot out of his own country , he knows he will be scalped . His position realizes to the letter— ' Tn the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread /

      His every moment is taken up _bj _r his exertions to procure food . The laws even of the society he exists in render him anything but a free agent . Witness the young warrior whose lodge was slit up on a cold winter's night , and his gun broken , because he had hunted without leave —{ game laws , with a vengeance ) . The more civilized and enlightened a country becomes , the greater liberty of thought and action its inhabitants enjoy . The honest labourer or sweeper of crossings in London has more real freedom than the proudest chief that ever hunted buffalo on the priarie . "

      As a set-off , however , let us mention the fact , that no one having tasted of this Indian life returns to civilization . There is something more in life than comforts or the , " British Constitution ; " some more energetic form of life can be lived than that of our miserable prejudice-cramped civilization , which did we not hold it as a mere transition stage to a higher life , we should call a wretched failure . Prom the anecdotes he relates , we select two , sufficiently suggestive : — A TEXAN DUEL .

      " St . Louis is famous for a duel that took place there some time ago . A regular fighting man and bully insulted a young man , and challenged him to fight : the novice refused to fight , except in a perfectly dark room , which was agreed to . The two men were put into a dark room , armed with bowie knives and revolvers , and the seconds were not to open the door for half-an-hour . At the end of that time they did so , and found the young man sitting at one end of the room smoking his pipe , and the body of his antagonist lying on the middle of the floor , w ith the head completely severed from the body and placed on it , so as to face the door ! The young man said they had followed each other about in the dark for some time without meeting , at length he drew himself up in a corner , quite close to the wall , and judging of his opponent's approach by his breathing , made a blow at him , and killed him on the spot . "

      The second comes in timely to support Mrs . Stowe ' s painful story of Uncle Tom ' s Cabin , ( a book we should have reviewed weeks ago , but that its excessive pain fulness prevented our reading it through . ) " I heard a very painful case that happened at Memphis , some short time before I was there . It is only a particular instance of cruelty wliich might , I have no doubt , be multiplied a dozen times , and which must continually tako place when there is no law ( not even a ' Martin ' s Act' ) to protect the Negro from the passion and spite of his owner . A slave dealer bought a slave from a plantation in Kentue ; ky ; the man was a first-rate mechanic and blacksmith , and his master only parted with him because he was ' hard up , ' with the proviso that his wife , to whom he was much attached , should not be ; separated from him . Tho sum _paiel for him

      was 1000 dollars—200 / . —alter tho sale ; the slaves were taken as usual to the _gaeil to be _leidged for the night , the _Negrei being satisfied by the promise that his wife shoulel accompany him the ; next day . The following morning , however , when the ; gang of slaves were ; brought out , chained two and two together by their wrists , preparatory to commencing their journey , the blacksmith lookeel in vain for his wife , and on _inepnring when ; she ; was , the ; slave-driver laughed at him , anel said : ' Oh ! you don't suppose 1 am ge _. ing to drag _jjour wife about tei please you , do you ? that was only a blind to get you irom your master . ' The slave said nothing , but soon after he ; drew his chain companion to where there ; was a hatchet , and taking it up in hiR loft , hand , which was free ; , he deliberately chopped oil" his right hand at tho wrist , anel holding up the ; stump to the ; slave-driver , said : ' There ; , you gave 1000 dollars for me , yesterday , what will you get new ?'

      " This c _« _ho created rather a feeling even in Kentucky , and a subscription wn * got up to buy tho Negro back , and restore him to his wife ; hut the demon in human shape ; , his master , refused to part with him at any price , saying , 'That he would not lose his revenge for having been made such a fool of , for ten theiusantl dollars ; that as tho man _chone te ) cut his own hand oil ' , ho shoulel learn to pick cotton with the ; other , and he woulel take ; care ; he ; lived long enough to repent of what he had done . ' There was no law to interfere ; , not eve ; n to control his brutality , and in a few days the slave was _inarche-d oil * south . ( Jan anything much _weirse lie instanced in the most cruel days of Rome ; and her emperors Y The sufferings even of Catiline ' s slaves that ho chained up to tbe necks in _Iuh _fish-peinels to be ; devoured piecemeal by lampreys , were ; of shorter duration than the sufferings of this mini . "

      We aro dipping very capriciously into these pages , which abound in ex tractable matter , and must reserve several passages lor future use . Here is something that will arrest the eye of all male readers : —

      HAVANA _C'lOAKH . " The Havana is , par excellence , tho paradise of _smokeVH ; tho climate aud the mode of life both induce a _dewiro for tho fragrant weed ; and then , such tobacco I

      Bambies In North And South America. Bumb...

      I think nobody who has not smoked a cigar just made of the best tobacco can h an idea of what a really perfect cigar is . Iu England we never see the tob _° that is smoked by the luxurious Creoles of the Havana . The retail shops h _^ by paying high , get the pick of the market / select a certain number of thi h _2 f leaves , which they roll up and sell to their regular customers every day as the rolled . They are roughly made , and probably would not sell in England . A *™ gular smoker will consume , perhaps , twenty or thirty a-day , but they are all fre } _T what we call a fine old cigar , a Cuban would not smoke . He either buys them da ' ' by day , as they are made , or else he buys a good hatch when he gets a chance and keeps them in air-tight packets of twelve , or twenty , or whatever his daily ' on sumption may be , so consuming one packet every day . The best cigar I e _° " smoked before or since , was one given me by Baron Rothschild ' s agent , at a part _^ at his house ; it was a rough-pressed one , called a ' vecquero , ' and was made of o _^ leaf , with no wrapper . Ceitainly a cigar is the most fascinating shape for the con sumption of tobacco .

      " The best tobacco is only grown in a very small district , called the Vuelta < k Abajo , on the north side of the island ; it is a very variable crop , afid the qualities and flavour of different seasons vary as much as the vintages of Burgundy . The season of 1851 produced the most abundant and finest flavoured crop that has been known in the island for some time . Though , undoubtedly , the best tobacco is grown in the island of Cuba , and the best cigars made at the Havana , yet such is the demand at present in Europe for the real _Havanas , that all the sickly plants and damaged leaves that formerly were thrown aside are now manufactured , and 1 have bought cigars there quite as bad as any British cabbage that one could buv for a half-penny in an English pot-house : moreover , a great quantity of tobacco ia imported into the Havana from Virginia , and manufactured there , and as twice the number of cigars are exported than the island produces tobacco enough to maunfacture , it follows , that ( omitting the great number smoked in Cuba itself , which are all genuine ) at least one-half of the cigars sold in Europe as real Havanas and

      which do actually come from thence , are made of American tobacco , which , being packed in cases , goes through the same process as the tobacco of which our connoisseurs profess such a contempt when made into our British cigars . In London or Liverpool there is only one reason why the British manufactured cigar should not be as good as the same tobacco manufactured where it is grown , namely ; that from being tightly packed in casks , it has to he soaked before it can be rendered soft enough to be rolled into a smokable shape , and this is supposed to affect its flavour ; but I think there is a great deal of imagination and fancy on the subject . I am not sure that , if I were offered an average Havana , and a good British cigar , I should select the former .

      " I went continually to the cigar manufacturers daring my stay at the Havana fifty or perhaps a hundred men are seated at long tables under sheds , each with a heap of rough tobacco leaves before him , and by his side a few finer leaves that have been picked out , moistened and ironed ; these are what they call wrappers , and upon the fineness of the wrapper , its colour and freedom from fibres or veins , and not upon the quality of the interior tobacco , depends the appearance and value of the cigar in the European market . The workman takes a number of leaves from the rough heap—instinct seems to direct him how many—and with two or three rolls between the palms of his hands and the table , forms them into the shape and size required : he then lays the wrapper on the table , and with one roll finishes the cigar , all except the end , which he twiddles round to a point in about a second . This is the most difficult part of the business , and it is very seldom that one sees a

      very good point : there is only only one man who they say can make a perfect one , and he is employed by Cabanas ; his wages are very high . The cigars made out of the same tobacco are given to different men , who sort them into three equal batches , Priineras , Segundas , Terceras , or first , second , and third qualities , and in this they are guided entirely of course by the neatness of the rolling , or the fineness and colour of the wrapper . The price of ordinary-sized cigars for the London market would be , Primera , 25 dollars , 51 , per thousand ; second quality , 18 dollars , or about 31 . 10 s . per thousand ; third quality , 15 dollars , about SI . per thousand ; now the third quality is just exactly the same tobacco as the other two ; it is only the outside wrapper that is at all inferior , the advantage of this being of a fine texture is , that it burns truer . Those for high-priced regalias for the London market , which

      are as high as from 120 to 200 dollars per thousand , are selected with great care as regards colour , texture , and freedom from veins and fibres . I went to see a case of some thousands that were going home to tho Great Exhibition ; they were manufactured by Patagras , one of tho first manufacturers ; thoy were selected with the greatest care , and _meist beautifully made of all shapes and sizes , by different wootlcn menlels . They hael cost the manufacturers from three to four hundred dollars a thousand , but barring the wrappers , the tobacco was no better than tha which was used for much cheaper ones . The pale cigars one sees with white spec «» in them , havo a wrapper mnde of tho outside leaf of tho tobacco p lant , which being nearest the ground , has been blanched by the moisture and the sun , and lost a got deal of its flavour . The plant itself rather resembles a cabbage . "

      In parting with Mr * Sullivan , we are tempted to correct an error ho has fallen into in correcting " a popular error . " " By the way , it is a popular error to suppose the Gorgon's head was fl mons _. er , on the contrary , it was the very quintessence of beauty , —sv lovely face ut wine gazer was amazed unel fascinated , antl which caused his destruction by a far i pleasant _se ; usatie > n than that of fear . " If Mr . Sullivan has seen any casts of the Gorgon ' s hood , he will remember , that besides the terrible beauty of that _eajm regular lace , < 1 ( _ is the terror of its serpent-locks , whieh would be ouito _suflicicnt to p _^ duee the effect . An agreeable sensation is tbo very last it would prouuc -

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      • Stb William Hamilton. Discussions On V...

      • STB WILLIAM HAMILTON . Discussions on Vhilosophy and Literature , Education and Universityrpeforni . „ . from the Edinburgh Review , corrected , vindicated , anel cnlargod in notes an ' Vq 0 , dices . By Hir Wm . Hamilton , Bart . _Longnian » _^ A mono the remarkable _rninds of tbis age , Sir William Hamilton _"J _^ . foremost rank ; and it is owing to the general discredit into , , irring . physics have deservedly fallen , that his name is not incessantly rod Even for those who , liko ourselves , regard Metaphysics at the P r 0 MC ' wlgo as nothing more than intellectual gymnastics ( and Plato in many a p _^ says , that Philosophy is for tho mind what Gymnastics is for tho w J ' _^ that our heresy has tho shield of a great name ) , the writings _q William have singular fascination i hi » va « t aad various erudition , l

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1852, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18091852/page/20/