OCR Text |
Show 180 NOTES ON enough.~ Can she eat more herself? A peck of corn. a. week is two pounds a day; and two pounds of corn vnll mak~ three pounds of bread, as every cook knows. Now her friend Dr. Hitchcock wiJI tcJI her that .a ,~ound to _" pound-and-a-half, is an ample aJlowanco, (sec hiS Dyspepsia ForcstaJlcd and Resisted,") and if he practises what he preaches he has given a twenty years' proof of It. For my part, tho~gh those who know me say I am "~oath on ~on~~ cakes," and I confess to their being "my partwular wamty, and would rather be confined to them, than to any other one article of food, I am sure I could not cat three pounds~ d;.~y; and if ~Irs. Stowe can, then I will admit lw~ voraCI~y, ~s wcJI as the "collecting clerk's," and shaJI bc!\m to thmk It runs in the family ! But "the slaves down the ~Iississippi," says 1\irs .. Stowe, (Key, P· 46,) "arc half-starved!" And the proof~~ lt ;, ~y, the proof of it! Open your eyes wrde, reader.- I he boats, when they stop &t night, arc .. const~ntly,~boar~c,d ~y sbves, begging for something to cat. Vcnly, :Mr. lobt.as Baudinot, St. Albans, Ohio, a member of tho Methodist Church,'' (I trust it has some better ti~?cr,) "who for s~mo years was a navigator" (by traverse sailmg, no doubt) on the Mississippi," must be a rare bird. Mothers !• look out for him, when he comes into your houses!. and d?n t let ~1m hear your children " bogging for bread, or h,c 11 certamly go away and report that they arc halj-sta,-ved' And you, ye sturdy farmers of tho North, who are generally supposed to have some common sense, read the.statc· mont of "Mr. Asa A. Stone" (Query: Any relatiOn to Miss Lucy?) "a theological student, who resided ncar Natchez, Miss., in 1834-5," that "on almost ever,y planta· t . the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some 10n, · 1 d deal seasons. or almost every year. There IS a wa~s a goo ar of suffering from hunger. On many plantatiOns, and p - UNCLE TOM'S CJ\Dl.N. 181 ticularly in Louisiana, the slaves arc in a condition of almost utter farnisltrnent, during a great portion of the year,'~ und remembering that a slave costs ten times as much as a horse, or a yoke of oxen, and considering with yourself how you treat your horses anU yow· oxen, anJ how you would almost as soon suffer, yourself, as see m·en those dumb animals suffer, then say what you think of a theological student who could gravely tell such a stm·y, and say further, how you woulrl like to hear such a one in the pulpit! For my p•rt, I should expect him 44 At times to vend n. rousing w!tid, And nail 't wi' Scripture!" And these arc :Mrs. Stowe's proofs! She must excuse me, but I cannot accept them. To n1l her nllcgations of short fare, I h~tve one <Jilwsufficient answer to opposc,-thc fact, namely, that the negroes tltrive upon their "common doings," (even where they cannot get" chick~n fixins,'') and prove that " the sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he cat little or much," (Eccl. v. 12,) and that they "inCI·e,.0 and multiply" ten per cent. faster than their white brethren. But I forget: b.frs. Stowe docs n't like "percentage." 11his is singular, considering the lessons she has taken in it, with a certain publishing house in Boston during the past twelve months. However, "there is no disputing about tastes." 'l'herc is one other allegation under this head, that I h•d almost forgotten : "The negroes,'' b.Irs. Stowe teJJ.s us, "have 'to grind tbeir own corn." \Veil, that is better than ~o have no corn to grind. Ilbwever, as she seems to think It such a hardship, if s1w will read, in theN. Y. Daily Times, of Juno 14, 1853, the twcnty-founh of a series of excellent "~etters on the Productions, Industry, and Resources of the Slave .States," by one who, though not an anti.slavery ~r~pagand1st, because he is a fair-minded man, has yet no hkmg for slavery, she will learn, what, if she had ever lived Q . |