The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862

We clip the following in reference to a popular eccentric phrase from a note by a friend:

'By the way, do you know that the phrase, 'Or any other man,' can be found in Byron's Letter to my Grandmother's Review? He writes:

"Charley Incledon's usual exordium when people came into the tavern to hear him sing, without paying their share of the reckoning: 'If a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' etc., etc.''

That settles it. After all, there is nothing original in this world, or, as we presume, 'any other world.'

If the steamers for Europe take every week gold from this country, there is at least some comfort in the reflection that we received and continue to receive something for it. If American securities are returning to us from abroad, we are at least getting them back cheap and shall some day sell them again dear. There is some comfort and common-sense in the following from one of 'Hallett and Co.'s' circulars:

'We certainly ought not to complain. We had their money at the right time. It has done for the nation all that money could do—by giving the highest possible value to all our resources and products. Having reaped the full advantage of the investment, which has increased our means more than five-fold, we were never in a better position to commence its return. The securities are still very low; on an average from ten to fifty per cent below what they were originally sold for. To this discount is to be added something over twenty per cent in the present price of exchange. We are getting back our securities at about one half what we parted with them for. As money is plenty, the foreigner paying the premium on gold, we are certainly driving a very good bargain. We can, without the least inconvenience, part with one hundred million dollars in specie, which is lying idle in the vaults of our banks and the hands of our people, and get back nearly twice the amount of interest-paying securities, which is equivalent to the payment of a debt too, and stopping the interest on an equal amount, assuming securities of this country to a similar amount were held abroad, which is an excessive estimate, the aggregate not probably exceeding one hundred million dollars.'

We have heard of a German, who having been strung up in jest and cut down, declared it was 'a fery pad choke.' The best 'choke' of the season was issued by our friend the Boston Traveller, who in commenting on the remark of the London Times, to the effect that Mr. Lincoln is eating his artichoke, the South, leaf by leaf, but thinks it will not agree with him, said: 'It will not trouble him a thousandth part so much as Jeff Davis will be troubled when he shall, by and by, take his 'heartychoke with caper sauce.''

Hon Robert J. Walker knows the South well, and he has of late written well on it and on the present state and future prospects of our country. Those who have read Mr. Atkinson's instructive pamphlet upon 'Cheap Cotton,' will be interested in the strong confirmation of his arguments given by Hon. Robert J. Walker, late of Mississippi, in the following statement contained in one of his recent letters:

'From long residence in the South, and from having traversed every Southern State, I know it to be true that cotton is raised there most extensively and profitably by non-slaveholders, and upon farms using exclusively white labor. In Texas, especially, this is a great truth, nor is there a doubt that skilled, educated, persevering, and energetic free labor, engaged voluntarily for wages for its own use, would in time, especially when aided by improved culture and machinery, produce much larger crops and better cotton than is now raised by the forced and ignorant labor of slaves, and at a much cheaper rate and a far greater profit than any crop now produced in the North.'

With this great truth before us, will Government hesitate to seize on and settle Texas, as soon as circumstances admit? We have urged Texas from the beginning as the great stone of resistance which must eventually, by means of free labor be employed to stem the progress of cotton-ocracy in the other Southern States. On this subject Hon. Robert J. Walker's letter of June 28th is one of the most instructive and remarkable documents issued since the beginning of the free-labor agitation, and it is to be desired that it should be read by every freeman in the Union. Colonization, voluntary but effective, is, as he holds, the only remedy for the terrible evil of slavery, and the only basis of the peaceful restoration of the Union.

It was urged, months ago, against The Continental by a radical Abolition organ, that while favoring Emancipation, we were quite willing 'to colonize the negro out of the way.' And if it could promote the real welfare of both black and white, why should he not be colonized, even 'out of the way'? 'But it is impossible,' say the Conservatives; to which we reply that this is an age of great conceptions and great deeds, and it would be strange indeed if we, with steamboats, could not effect as much as was done of old by the most primitive races of both hemispheres. The Incas of Peru had no difficulty in moving hundreds of thousands of a conquered race to fresh fields and pastures new—why should we find it impossible? Let the same enthusiasm which has been displayed on the bare subject of freeing the black, be devoted to freeing and placing him at the same time in a climate congenial to his nature, and we should soon witness a solution of our great national difficulty.

We are indebted to a genial Western correspondent for

TOM JOHNSON'S BEAR.

A STORY WITH A MORAL

To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, this poem is dedicated with the 'distinguished consideration' of

The AuthorTom Johnson he lived on the Western border,Where he went to escape from 'law and order,'For Tom was a terrible fellow, was he,He drunk, and he swore, and he fou't2 like theOld Harry—and Tom he had a wife:Fit partner she was of his backwoods life.Tom lived on the border for divers years,Where he fou't the red-skins, and he fou't the bearsAnd there wasn't a thing that could bite or scratchFor which Tom Johnson wasn't a match,Excepting his wife, and she was the betterHalf by all odds—he'd often get herIn a tight place, and give her a strapping.But somehow or other 'twould always happen,In every tussle and every bout,In every 'scrimmage' and every rout,She'd come out ahead of the cross-grained old wizzard,And by hook or crook manage to 'give him a blizzard.'Sometimes from a brawl of which Tom was the hero,Returning at midnight, the weather at zero,His wife snug in bed, and the door safely barred,Long time would elapse ere his shouts could be heard;And sometimes she'd catch him dead drunk or asleep,When he'd find himself suddenly 'all of a heap,'And open his eyes on his bellicose bride,Hot mush in his mouth and his under-pins tied.So she managed to keep just inside of the law,While he ever would find himself 'hors du combat.'As Johnson was one day exploring the wood,To replenish the meat-tub—then empty—with food,While a tree-top near by he was leisurely viewin''He spied the short ears and sharp eyes of old Bruin,Peering out 'mid the branches—a sight worth a dollarWhen the rifle is charged and the stomach is hollow;So he drew a bead on him, and sent him a missile,Which Brain perceived, by an ominous whistle,Was very near taking him plump in the eye,But he dodged just in time, and the bullet went by.Now bears are pugnacious—as much so as wives,And whenever assaulted will fight for their lives;So seeing that Tom's ammunition was spent,He determined at once on a hasty descent;For knowing that he or Tom Johnson would eat,The question arose which should furnish the meat;For although the bullet had wrought some confusion,A moment's reflection produced the conclusion,That he at the foot of the tree with the gun,Minus powder and bullet, must needs be the one;So he slid down the tree, with much scratching and clawing,Designing to give poor Tom's carcass a gnawing.But Thomas, intent upon saving his life,And calling to mind a sharp trick of his wife,As Bruin came down, his legs clasping the tree,Caught a paw in each hand and held tight as could be:He put on a grip unto Bruin quite new,Like a vice when the blacksmith is turning the screw.But now what to do there arose a great doubt,For Bruin and Johnson had both just found outWhat neither had thought of until 'twas too late,That each was exposed to a merciless fateAt the hands, or the teeth, or the claws of the other,At which neither could his astonishment smother,And neither knew what it was safest to do;'Twas hard to hold on, but 'twas worse to let go!Now Johnson still being not far from his house,Bethought him in time of his excellent spouse,So he hooted and hallooed and made such a noiseShe distinguished at last his affectionate voice,Calling loudly for help as it rose on the breeze,Like the panther's wild scream in the tops of the trees:'O Julee, dear Julee! come, help me this time,And I never again—will—(oh! bother the rhyme,)Will bite you, or scratch you, or whip you, not I,But love and protect you till you or I die.'Now good Mistress Johnson, dear soul, when she heardThe piteous cries of her penitent lord,Got herself to the wood with broom-stick in hand.'I am, most respectfully, yours to command,'Said the wife, as she came and found Tom and the bearBoth hugging a tree with the grip of despair.'O Julee, dear Julee! How can you?—now come,Do help me, or quickly-confound it!—our homeWon't have any master!—dear Julee, consider—The children no daddy, and you a lone widow!'An unlucky hint for poor Tom, by the by,'For worse things might happen!' thought she with a sigh.But good mistress Johnson, though love was but scant,Had a heart never hewn from the worst adamant;It softened apace, so with broom-stick in airAnd ire in her eye she advanced on the bear,Who seeing the enemy thus reënforcedTried to get his fore-paws from Tom's clutches divorced.O woman, poor woman! dear woman! sweet thing!O light of earth's darkness! O treasure supernal!Thy fond heart, though crushed, win unceasingly clingTo a loved one, though fallen, degraded, infernal!Thrice Bruin's tough hide from the broom-stick now had a cut;Quoth Johnson: 'My darling, that weapon's inadequate—Hold a bit—let me see—now we'll fix him—here, Mother—Reach your hand—take this paw—hold it tight—now the other.There, I will dispatch him—ah! where is my gun?And bullets? dear me!—ah!—why, what have I done?I will run to the house, and be back in a trice—Hold on, my beloved! be 'still as a mice!'''Quick! quick!' the wife shouted. 'Be off—get away!Make tracks, Mr. Johnson! don't stand there all day!'So Tom started off in pursuit of assistance,And leisurely walking a very short distance,Turned, paused to reflect, then addressed her: 'My dear,My conscience upbraids me concerning this bear;A very great doubt has arisen in my mind—I am not quite sure—but am rather inclined,Indeed—I may say—I have reached the conclusionThat bears have been made a Divine Institution;This is plainly deduced from the Scriptures of truth,Which frightened me much in the days of my youth,With the story of forty of ages quite tender,Torn to strings by two gears of the feminine gender:And not only so, but you see, Mistress Julia,This same institution is very 'peculiar;'I found it somewhat inconvenient to hold,(The cubs are quite harmless, but this one is old,)He is gentle at first, but as muscle increases,Shows some disposition to tear one in pieces.Then hold him the tighter, and keep up good heart,As it's all in the family, you'll do your part.'Tom closed his oration with actions to suit,Then went to his house, where the reprobate bruteWhipped the children and kicked his old mother out-door,Got tipsy as Bacchus and rolled on the floor,While his wife held the bear, fast tied to the spot,And how long she staid there, deponent says not.Secesh has a bear, and has had many years,At first, a mere pet, he engendered no fears;But now he's grown strong and can fight like a major,And has like his master become an old stager;He has taught him to work, and has trained him to fight,Adding strength to his hands and increasing his might;Albeit if free he would turn on his master,Who knows it full well, and hence holds him the faster;But not only so, he insists we shall helpWhile he fights to destroy us, at holding his whelp!And strangely enough, we obey his command,While he strikes at our vitals and plunders the land!He has murdered the son and led captive the brother,Has broke up the home and made war on his mother;And now while our sons by the thousand are slainThe nation to save and its life to maintain,When the patriot's eyelids are closing in death,While a prayer for his country inspires his last breath,Or bleeding he lies as the foul traitor's dartIs caught in the folds of the flag round his heart,While freedom's bright bow, for the millions unborn,No longer encircles the brow of the storm,While the sun of our glory grows dim in our sight,And the star of our destiny's shrouded in night;Still our paralyzed hands, to our country untrue,Are stretched out to succor the traitorous crew,As they strike for our lives, fully bent on our ruin,We lend them assistance by holding their Bruin,And tell all the world that our national warsShall be waged to protect constitutional bears.And now let us know, my dear sir, in conclusion,How long must continue this monstrous delusion,(If not a state secret, so sacred a oneThat it may to the Cabinet only be known,)While being destroyed by a traitorous war,How long we must aid them by holding their bear?Or how long shall we flourish our broom-stick, and say,To one who would help us: 'Keep out of the way!Go home to your master, your Samaritan neighbor;Return all his kindness and give him your labor,Plant corn, hoe the cotton, and keep things all bright,Give him plenty to eat and more leisure to fight;For we mean to protect him in every 'RIGHT;'And the best way of keeping the 'whole Constitution'Is to help those who fight for its whole dissolution,(Though this proposition may seem somewhat strange,)While we dig our own ditches and fire at long range,For our duty is plain, when the traitor makes war,To give aid and comfort by holding his bear.'

We find the following in the notice of The Continental Monthly by a contemporary:

'The Continental looks upon Slavery through blood and murder eyes. It sees in the institution nothing but lashes, salt-rubbed wounds, bloodhounds, and iron-hearted taskmasters. It looks upon the war as solely for the freedom of the nigger; and judging from its tone for the past six months would undoubtedly go in for an entire separation, if its editors and contributors thought at the end of the conflict the rebellious States would be restored to the Union with the 'peculiar institution' still in force.'

Ab uno disce omnes. This, reader, is the manner in which every democratic-conservative journal which has undertaken to notice our Magazine speaks of it. And the reader who has followed us—who has fairly and equitably appreciated our views of the war and of Emancipation—will not hesitate for an instant in pronouncing it as perfectly false a verdict as was ever yet given against any one. We have never in any way looked upon the war as 'solely for the freedom of the nigger,' and we have been chid by the regular Abolition press because we did not look more to the welfare of the negro, or, as the Liberator accused us, of being willing to 'colonize the slave out of the way.' It was in the Knickerbocker and in these pages, and editorially, that the principle of the true Republican, Free White Labor Emancipationists, in the words, 'Emancipation for the sake of the White Man,' first appeared. And while we advocate ultimate emancipation, it is not as the matter of primary importance that we do so. Slavery has inextricably entangled itself with the war, and no one who takes a broad, comprehensive view of the struggle, or of contemporary history, can fail to see that slavery must ultimately go, because it makes bad citizens of the masters, wastes soil, represses manufactures, neutralizes the proper development of capital, and, worst of all, degrades labor—man's noblest prerogative—and inflicts grievous wrong on the white working man. And does not every Southern journal and every Southern 'gentleman' prove what we say? 'Aristocrat,' 'Norman gentleman,' 'Yankee serf,' 'vile herd'—is it not enough to make the heart sick and the brain burn to hear the poor sons and daughters of toil, those whom God has appointed to be truly good and useful, cursed and reviled in this manner by the few owners of black labor? Is there not enough in the wrongs of the white man to inspire all the headlong zeal and boldness with which the press credit us, without making the miserable negro the chief aim? Not but that we pity the latter, God knows! But it is the elevation of the dignity of white labor that we have in hand, and while we advocate 'emancipation to come' sooner or later, it is as a means of doing justice to the white man. Let us emancipate white labor from the comparison with slavery and from the sneers of an aristocracy which will be 'Cæsar or nothing' among us.

The South has sinned against man and God by voluntarily, boldly, shamelessly reviling the poor, who are the chosen children of God. And for all this they shall be judged by those whom they have cursed and ridiculed. The most crushing tread of destiny is reserved for those who impertinently aid her in trampling the lowly. Does Christ, think you, whose whole teaching was one upholding of the poor and the hard-working, approve this scorn of the 'laboring scum'? So surely as this thing has been fevered to a war, so surely shall there be one last moment when dying Southern sin shall exclaim: 'Vicisti Galilæ!'

But what are we to think of the hangers-on and parasites and shadows and 'shadows of shadows,' as Plautus calls the vilest toadies to sycophants, who, hard-working men themselves, try to catch some faint reflection of sham gentility by 'talking pro-slavery because they think it aristocratic,' as Winthrop says? What of an editor—the one who of all men works hard for indifferent reward—who forgets the nobility which should surround all who speak for and to the people, and beslabbers the meanest and most contemptible of even sham aristocracies, that which is self-conscious, self-glorifying by comparison and forgetful that noblesse oblige? Or what of him when he cunningly and with the vulgar 'cuteness which characterizes the most degraded snobbery, takes pains to make it appear that the labor of another on behalf of the poor white man is meant solely for the negro, and that the former is to be sacrificed to the latter!

We know, see, and feel clearly what we want and what we believe. It is the progress of the rights of free white labor, which correctly considered means all that is right. And if this were understood and felt, as it should be by those most deeply interested, our police would be amply sufficient to punish the soi-disant Normans of the South.

If we could speak a word to all men in or about to enter the army, it would be: 'Don't drink.' We know the fever and ague country, and assure our readers that all advice to the contrary notwithstanding, he who lets liquor alone will fare best in the end. Apropos of which we clip the following:

'Hall's Journal of Health recommends to those writing to soldier friends to inclose a little capsicum (in the vulgar, simply strong cayenne pepper) in the letter. The editor declares that the effect of the slightest pinch in a glass of water, is better than quinine whisky. It prevents thirst, and wards off miasma; it protects from chills, and does not induce too much animal heat. It stimulates without leaving any depressing effect; all of which we most firmly believe. The weight is so small that enough to do a great deal of good may be put in tissue-paper and be inclosed in a single letter without cost additional to the regular postage rates.'

Every mail brings fresh proof of English antipathy to the Federal Union. It is now only a question of time when we are to be attacked by the great Abolition nation. John Bull is hammering away at his iron-clads and doing his best in every direction to aid the aristocratic and despotic principle, so dear to his soul—nay, which is his very soul and self. In China he is helping the Imperialists, whose awful and heart-rending atrocities go beyond all belief—in the West, the slaveholder meets with his warmest sympathy. How well—how human—how Christian he looks now with his sheepskin thrown aside—this selfish, brutal savage, howling for cotton and trade and gold as though all truth, honor, and nobility were as dirt before them.

For all this, England will have its reward. In the history of nations, 1862 shall be marked as the year of British falsehood, infamy, and guilt. Upharsin!

Dear Continental: Curious fellows those Pre-Raphaelites!

Do you remember Holman Hunt's picture of the Light of the World? I remember that one evening at the Century, among a cheerful group of Leutze, Durand, Gifford, Mignot, and others, you once called it a pre-Raphaelight of the World!

Well, 'twas far away in Switzerland, tilly hi ho—tilly i o! all in the mountains high, several years ago, and I was touring and sketching somewhere along in the Oberland. I found at last a retired village without English. No—not without them altogether—there was one little man with a barba rossa, and he was pre-Raphaeliting round for a subject.

He found it at last in a small rock about nine inches by twelve—full of sentiment, tone, color, piety, feeling, reality, child-like faith and trustingness.

And he went to work to paint the rock.

Day after day he painted. When it rained he worked under an umbrella; when it sun-shone on him he toiled in the heat.

I pitied him. 'Smith,' said I, 'what do you do that for? Why don't you pick your stone up and take it home with you? Put it in your trunk and carry it back to London. It isn't a landscape, you know.'

'By Jove!' quoth he, 'I never thought of that. So I will, d'ye know. 'Ow very hodd! Vell! you Yankees are werry hinwentive, I must hadmit.'

And he did; and the portrait of the rock went into the 'Annual Exhibish,' and was thought to be the deepest-toned thing 'out.'

And it's true.

Yours also,Galli Van T.

It is odd, but after all, the world seldom sees a real original letter. Letters of business, old letters, love-letters, and letters written for print, the world sees enough. But the real life-descriptive gossiping letter is rarely en-typed. More's the pity.

Here is one—from a never-seen friend—which has been lying for months in The Continental his drawer. Shall we be pardoned for publishing it? We hope so, for we remember that it pleased us well when we received it, and what is good for the editor must be good for the reader. Let it go!

The Hermitage, May, 1862.

Dear Friend: Appearances—to make a very original remark—are deceitful. To the traveler who may chance to cast his eyes upon this little brown, house, a little brown house it will be to him, 'and nothing more.' He will not even notice the woodbines that are flinging their arms around the windows, nor will he dwell for an instant upon the thrifty cotton-woods that guard the door, or bestow more than a casual glance on the artistically arranged garden-beds, wherein I have anxiously watched tulips and radishes sprouting into existence. Anxiously—for winter has been writing a somewhat lengthy postscript to his annual message, and the modest, gentle-mannered spring retreats in lady-like fright before his furious blasts.

Now we are having an interval of hazy warmth—the really royal weather of the year—red sunshine, the hills purple and blue in the distance, and the still air savory with the smoke of brush-burnings and the wild breath of new-lifed vegetation. Lovelier than the Indian summer, for mingled with all things is the consciousness of the flowering and fruiting to come. The Indian summer has a sweet sadness. The spring is full of hope and promise, and the heart buds with the flowers.

Out in the midst of all this country springtime freshness, our 'Hermitage' looks up from its shrubberies and rejoices within itself, and does not care for the traveler's careless glances. The traveler may call it stupid and ugly, if he calls it at all; our Hermitage still patiently wears its havelock of weather-beaten shingles, for it knows that beneath its lowly roof—radiant with whitewash and fresh paper—are cozy, coolly curtained rooms, where friendly books look down from the wall, and drowsy arm-chairs woo from the corners.