The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866

So far Wilkinson, the Milton of physiologists.

But lest these lucubrations should seem to be those of a mere glutton and gastrolater,—of one like the gourmand of old time, who longed for the neck of an ostrich or crane that the pleasure of swallowing dainty morsels might be as protracted as possible,—let me assume a vegetable, Pythagorean standpoint, and thence survey this accumulation of creature comforts, that is, that portion of them which consists of dead flesh. The vegetables and the fruits, the blazonry of autumn, are of course ignored from this point of view. Thus beheld, Quincy Market presents a spectacle that excites disgust and loathing, and exemplifies the fallen, depraved, and sophisticated state of human nature and human society. In those juicy quarters and surloins of beef and those fat porcine carcasses the vegetable-eater, Grahamite or Brahmin, sees nothing but the cause of beastly appetites, scrofula, apoplexy, corpulence, cheeks flushed with ungovernable propensities, tendencies downward toward the plane of the lower animals, bloodshot eyes, swollen veins, impure blood, violent passions, fetid breath, stertorous respiration, sudden death,—in fact, disease and brutishness of all sorts. A Brahmin traversing this goodly market would regard it as a vast charnel, a loathsome receptacle of dead flesh on its way to putrescence. His gorge would rise in rebellion at the sight. To the Brahmin, the lower animal kingdom is a vast masquerade of transmigratory souls. If he should devour a goose or turkey or hen, or a part of a bullock or sheep or goat, he might, according to his creed, be eating the temporary organism of his grandmother. The poet Pope wrote in the true Brahminical spirit, when he said,—"Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood, and abounding with cries of creatures expiring, or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up there. It gives one an image of a giant's den in romance, bestrewed with the scattered heads and mangled limbs of those who were slain by his cruelty." Think of the porcine shambles of Cincinnati, with their swift-handed swine-slayers!

 
"What loud lament and dismal miserere,"
 

ear-deafening and horrible, must issue from them. How can a Jew reside in that porkopolitan municipality? The brutishness of the Bowery butchers is proverbial. A late number of Leslie's Pictorial represents a Bowery butcher's wagon crowded with sheep and calves so densely that their heads are protruded against the wheels, which revolve with the utmost speed, the brutal driver urging his horse furiously.

The first advocate of a purely vegetable diet was Pythagoras, the Samian philosopher. His discourse delivered at Crotona, a city of Magna Græcia, is ably reported for posterity by the poet Ovid. From what materials he made up his report, it is impossible now to say. Pythagoras says that flesh-eaters make their stomachs the sepulchres of the lower animals, the cemeteries of beasts. About thirty years ago there was a vegetable diet movement hereabouts, which created some excitement at the time. Its adherents were variously denominated as Grahamites, and, from the fact of their using bread made of unbolted wheat-meal, bran-eaters. There was little of muscular Christianity in them. They were a pale, harmless set of valetudinarians, who were, like all weakly persons, morbidly alive to their own bodily states, and principally employed in experimenting on the effects of various insipid articles of diet. Tea and coffee were tabooed by these people. Ale and wine were abominations in their Index Expurgatorius of forbidden ingesta. The presence of a boiled egg on their breakfast-tables would cause some of the more sensitive of these New England Brahmins to betake themselves to their beds for the rest of the day. They kept themselves in a semi-famished state on principle. One of the most liberal and latitudinarian of the sect wrote, in 1835,—"For two years past I have abstained from the use of all the diffusible stimulants, using no animal food, either flesh, fish, or fowl, nor any alcoholic or vinous spirits, no form of ale, beer, or porter, no cider, tea, or coffee; but using milk and water as my only liquid aliment, and feeding sparingly, or rather moderately, upon farinaceous food, vegetables, and fruit, seasoned with unmelted butter, slightly boiled eggs, and sugar and molasses, with no condiment but common salt."

These ultra-temperance dietetical philosophers never flourished greatly. They were too languid and too little enthusiastic to propagate their rules of living and make converts. In a country where meat is within reach of all, a vegetable dietary is not popular. Doubtless a less frequent use of fleshly food would be greatly to our advantage as a people. But utter abstinence is out of the question. A vegetable diet, however, has great authorities in its favor, both ancient and modern. Plautus, Plutarch, Porphyry of Tyre, Lord Bacon, Sir William Temple, Cicero, Cyrus the Great, Pope, Newton, and Shelley have all left their testimony in favor of it and of simplicity of living. Poor Shelley, who in his abstract moods forgot even to take vegetable sustenance for days together, makes a furious onslaught upon flesh-eating in his Notes to "Queen Mab." The notes, as well as the poem, are crude productions, the outgivings of a boy; but that boy was Shelley. It was said that he was traceable, in his lonely wanderings in secluded places in Italy, by the crumbs of bread which he let fall. Speculative thinkers have generally been light feeders, eschewing stimulants, both solid and liquid, and preferring mild food and water for drink. Those who lead an interior life sedentary and contemplative need not gross pabulum, but would find their inward joy at the contemplation and discovery of truth seriously qualified and deadened by it. Spare fast is the companion of the ecstatic moods of a high truth-seeker such as Newton, Malebranche, etc. Immanuel Kant was almost the only profound speculative thinker who was decidedly convivial, and given to gulosity, at least at his dinner. Asceticism ordinarily reigns in the cloister and student's bower. The Oxford scholar long ago, as described by Chaucer, was adust and thin.

 
"As lene was his hors as is a rake,
And he was not right fat, I undertake."
 

The ancient anchorets of the East, the children of St. Anthony, were a long-lived sect, rivalling the many-wintered crow in longevity. Yet their lives were vapid monotonies, only long in months and years. They were devoid of vivid sensations, and vegetated merely. Milk-eaters were, in the days of Homer, the longest-lived of men.

Without the ministry of culinary fire, man could not gratify his carnivorous propensities. He would be obliged to content himself with a vegetable diet; for, according to the comparative anatomists, man is not structurally a flesh-eater. At any rate he is not fanged or clawed. His teeth and nails are not like the natural cutlery found in the mouths and paws of beasts of prey. He cannot eat raw flesh. Digger Indians are left to do that when the meat is putrescent. Prometheus was the inventor of roast and boiled beef, and of cookery generally, and therefore the destroyer of the original simplicity of living which characterized primitive man, when milk and fruits cooked by the sun, and acorns, were the standing repasts of unsophisticated humanity. Per contra, Horace makes man, in his mast-eating days, a poor creature.

 
"Forth from the earth when human kind
First crept, a dull and brutish herd, with nails
And fists they fought for dens wherein to couch, and acorns."
 

Don Quixote, however, in his eloquent harangue to the shepherds in the Sierra Morena, took a different view of man during the acorn period. He saw in it the golden age.

There are vast rice-eating populations in China and India, who are a low grade of men, morally and physically. Exceptional cases of longevity, like those of old Parr, Jenkins, Francisco, Pratt, and Farnham, are often-times adduced as the results of abstemiousness and frugality of living. These exceptional cases prove nothing whatever. These individuals happened to reach an almost antediluvian longevity, thanks to their inherited vitality and their listless, uneventful, monotonous lives. Their hearts beat a dull funeral march through four or five generations, and finally stopped. But the longevity of such mighty thinkers and superb men as Humboldt and Goethe is glorious to contemplate. They were never old, but were vernal in spirit to the last, and, for aught that appears to the contrary, generous livers, not "acid ghouls" or bran-eating valetudinarians. Shakespeare died at fifty-one, but great thinkers and poets have generally been long-lived. "Better fifty years of Europe" or America "than a cycle of" rice-eating "Cathay."

The value of the animals slaughtered in this country in 1860 was, in round numbers, $212,000,000, a sum to make the vegetable feeder stare and gasp. How many thousands and tens of thousands of acres of herbage, which could not be directly available for human consumption as food, had these slaughtered animals incorporated into their frames, and rendered edible for man! "The most fertile districts of the habitable globe," says Shelley, "are now actually cultivated by men for animals, at a delay and waste of aliment absolutely incalculable." On the contrary, the close-feeding sheep and the cow and ox utilize for man millions of acres of vegetation which would otherwise be useless. The domestic animals which everywhere accompany civilized man were a part of them intended as machines to convert herbage into milk and flesh for man's sustenance. The tame villatic fowl scratches and picks with might and main, converting a thousand refuse things into dainty human food. A vegetable diet is out of the question for the blubber-eating Esquimaux and Greenlander, even if it would keep the flame of life burning in their Polar latitudes.

The better and more nutritious the diet, the better the health. It is to the improved garden vegetables and domestic animals that man will hereafter owe the superior health and personal comeliness which he will undoubtedly enjoy as our planet becomes more and more humanized, and man asserts his proper lordship over Nature. This matter of vegetable and animal food is dictated by climate. In the temperate zone they go well mixed. In the tropics man is naturally a Pythagorean, but he is not so strong, or so healthy, or moral, or intellectual, as the flesh-eating nations of northern latitudes.

THE FREEDMAN'S STORY

IN TWO PARTS

PART II

As the Freedman relates only events which came under his own observation, it is necessary to preface the remaining portion of his narrative with a brief account of the Christiana riot. This I extract mainly from a statement made at the time by a member of the Philadelphia bar, making only a few alterations to give the account greater clearness and brevity.

On the 9th of September, 1851, Mr. Edward Gorsuch, a citizen of Maryland, residing near Baltimore, appeared before Edward D. Ingraham, Esquire, United States Commissioner at Philadelphia, and asked for warrants under the act of Congress of September 18, 1850, for the arrest of four of his slaves, whom he had heard were secreted somewhere in Lancaster County. Warrants were issued forthwith, directed to H. H. Kline, a deputy United States Marshal, authorizing him to arrest George Hammond, Joshua Hammond, Nelson Ford, and Noah Buley, persons held to service or labor in the State of Maryland, and to bring them before the said Commissioner.

Mr. Gorsuch then made arrangements with John Agin and Thompson Tully, residents of Philadelphia, and police officers, to assist Kline in making the arrests. They were to meet Mr. Gorsuch and some companions at Penningtonville, a small place on the State Railroad, about fifty miles from Philadelphia. Kline, with the warrants, left Philadelphia on the same day, about 2 p.m., for West Chester. There he hired a conveyance and rode to Gallagherville, where he hired another conveyance to take him to Penningtonville. Before he had driven very far, the carriage breaking down, he returned to Gallagherville, procured another, and started again. Owing to this detention, he was prevented from meeting Mr. Gorsuch and his friends at the appointed time, and when he reached Penningtonville, about 2 a.m. on the 10th of September, they had gone.

On entering the tavern, the place of rendezvous, he saw a colored man whom he recognized as Samuel Williams, a resident of Philadelphia. To put Williams off his guard, Kline asked the landlord some questions about horse thieves. Williams remarked that he had seen the "horse thieves," and told Kline he had come too late.

Kline then drove on to a place called the Gap. Seeing a person he believed to be Williams following him, he stopped at several taverns along the road and made inquiries about horse thieves. He reached the Gap about 3 a.m., put up his horses, and went to bed. At half past four he rose, ate breakfast, and rode to Parkesburg, about forty-five miles from Philadelphia, and on the same railroad. Here he found Agin and Tully asleep in the bar-room. He awoke Agin, called him aside, and inquired for Mr. Gorsuch and his party. He was told they had gone to Sadsbury, a small place on the turnpike, four or five miles from Parkesburg.

On going there, he found them, about 9 a.m. on the 10th of September. Kline told them he had seen Agin and Tully, who had determined to return to Philadelphia, and proposed that the whole party should return to Gallagherville. Mr. Gorsuch, however, determined to go to Parkesburg instead, to see Agin and Tully, and attempt to persuade them not to return. The rest of the party were to go to Gallagherville, while Kline returned to Downingtown, to see Agin and Tully, should Mr. Gorsuch fail to meet them at Parkesburg. He left Gallagherville about 11 a.m., and met Agin and Tully at Downingtown. Agin said he had seen Mr. Gorsuch, but refused to go back. He promised, however, to return from Philadelphia in the evening cars. Kline returned to Downingtown, and then met all the party except Mr. Edward Gorsuch, who had remained behind to make the necessary arrangements for procuring a guide to the houses where he had been informed his negroes were to be found.

About 3 p.m., Mr. Edward Gorsuch joined them at Gallagherville, and at 11 p.m. on the night of the 10th of September they all went in the cars to Downingtown, where they waited for the evening train from Philadelphia.

When it arrived, neither Agin nor Tully was to be seen. The rest of the party went on to the Gap, which they reached about half past one on the morning of the 11th of September. They then continued their journey on foot towards Christiana, where Parker was residing, and where the slaves of Mr. Gorsuch were supposed to be living. The party then consisted of Kline, Edward Gorsuch, Dickinson Gorsuch, his son, Joshua M. Gorsuch, his nephew, Dr. Thomas Pierce, Nicholas T. Hutchings, and Nathan Nelson.

After they had proceeded about a mile they met a man who was represented to be a guide. He is said to have been disguised in such a way that none of the party could recognize him, and his name is not mentioned in any proceedings. It is probable that he was employed by Mr. Edward Gorsuch, and one condition of his services may have been that he should be allowed to use every possible means of concealing his face and name from the rest of the party. Under his conduct, the party went on, and soon reached a house in which they were told one of the slaves was to be found. Mr. Gorsuch wished to send part of the company after him, but Kline was unwilling to divide their strength, and they walked on, intending to return that way after making the other arrests.

The guide led them by a circuitous route, until they reached the Valley Road, near the house of William Parker, the writer of the annexed narrative, which was their point of destination. They halted in a lane near by, ate some crackers and cheese, examined the condition of their fire-arms, and consulted upon the plan of attack. A short walk brought them to the orchard in front of Parker's house, which the guide pointed out and left them. He had no desire to remain and witness the result of his false information. His disguise and desertion of his employer are strong circumstances in proof of the fact that he knew he was misleading the party. On the trial of Hanway, it was proved by the defence that Nelson Ford, one of the fugitives, was not on the ground until after the sun was up. Joshua Hammond had lived in the vicinity up to the time that a man by the name of Williams had been kidnapped, when he and several others departed, and had not since been heard from. Of the other two, one at least, if the evidence for the prosecution is to be relied upon, was in the house at which the party first halted, so that there could not have been more than one of Mr. Gorsuch's slaves in Parker's house, and of this there is no positive testimony.

It was not yet daybreak when the party approached the house. They made demand for the slaves, and threatened to burn the house and shoot the occupants, if they would not surrender. At this time, the number of besiegers seems to have been increased, and as many as fifteen are said to have been near the house. About daybreak, when they were advancing a second or third time, they saw a negro coming out, whom Mr. Gorsuch thought he recognized as one of his slaves. Kline pursued him with a revolver in his hand, and stumbled over the bars near the house. Some of the company came up before Kline, and found the door open. They entered, and Kline, following, called for the owner, ordered all to come down, and said he had two warrants for the arrest of Nelson Ford and Joshua Hammond. He was answered that there were no such men in the house. Kline, followed by Mr. Gorsuch, attempted to go up stairs. They were prevented from ascending by what appears to have been an ordinary fish gig. Some of the witnesses described it as "like a pitchfork with blunt prongs," and others were at a loss what to call this, the first weapon used in the contest. An axe was next thrown down, but hit no one.

Mr. Gorsuch and others then went outside to talk with the negroes at the window. Just at this time Kline fired his pistol up stairs. The warrants were then read outside the house, and demand made upon the landlord. No answer was heard. After a short interview, Kline proposed to withdraw his men, but Mr. Gorsuch refused, and said he would not leave the ground until he made the arrests. Kline then in a loud voice ordered some one to go to the sheriff and bring a hundred men, thinking, as he afterwards said, this would intimidate them. The threat appears to have had some effect, for the negroes asked time to consider. The party outside agreed to give fifteen minutes.

While these scenes were passing at the house, occurrences transpired elsewhere that are worthy of attention, but which cannot be understood without a short statement of previous events.

In the month of September, 1850, a colored man, known in the neighborhood around Christiana to be free, was seized and carried away by men known to be professional kidnappers, and had not been seen by his family since. In March, 1851, in the same neighborhood, under the roof of his employer, during the night, another colored man was tied, gagged, and carried away, marking the road along which he was dragged with his blood. No authority for this outrage was ever shown, and the man was never heard from. These and many other acts of a similar kind had so alarmed the neighborhood, that the very name of kidnapper was sufficient to create a panic. The blacks feared for their own safety; and the whites, knowing their feelings, were apprehensive that any attempt to repeat these outrages would be the cause of bloodshed. Many good citizens were determined to do all in their power to prevent these lawless depredations, though they were ready to submit to any measures sanctioned by legal process. They regretted the existence among them of a body of people liable to such violence; but without combination had, each for himself, resolved that they would do everything dictated by humanity to resist barbarous oppression.

On the morning in question, a colored man living in the neighborhood, who was passing Parker's house at an early hour, saw the yard full of men. He halted, and was met by a man who presented a pistol at him, and ordered him to leave the place. He went away and hastened to a store kept by Elijah Lewis, which, like all places of that kind, was probably the head-quarters of news in the neighborhood. Mr. Lewis was in the act of opening his store when this man told him that "Parker's house was surrounded by kidnappers, who had broken into the house, and were trying to get him away." Lewis, not questioning the truth of the statement, repaired immediately to the place. On the way he passed the house of Castner Hanway, and, telling him what he had heard, asked him to go over to Parker's. Hanway was in feeble health and unable to undergo the fatigue of walking that distance; but he saddled his horse, and reached Parker's during the armistice.

Having no reason to believe he was acting under legal authority, when Kline approached and demanded assistance in making the arrests, Hanway made no answer. Kline then handed him the warrants, which Hanway examined, saw they appeared genuine, and returned.

At this time, several colored men, who no doubt had heard the report that kidnappers were about, came up, armed with such weapons as they could suddenly lay hands upon. How many were on the ground during the affray it is now impossible to determine. The witnesses on both sides vary materially in their estimate. Some said they saw a dozen or fifteen; some, thirty or forty; and others maintained, as many as two or three hundred. It is known there were not two hundred colored men within eight miles of Parker's house, nor half that number within four miles; and it would have been almost impossible to get together even thirty at an hour's notice. It is probable there were about twenty-five, all told, at or near the house from the beginning of the affray until all was quiet again. These the fears of those who afterwards testified to larger numbers might easily have magnified to fifty or a hundred.

While Kline and Hanway were in conversation, Elijah Lewis came up. Hanway said to him, "Here is the Marshal." Lewis asked to see his authority, and Kline handed him one of the warrants. When he saw the signature of the United States Commissioner, "he took it for granted that Kline had authority." Kline then ordered Hanway and Lewis to assist in arresting the alleged fugitives. Hanway refused to have anything to do with it. The negroes around these three men seeming disposed to make an attack, Hanway "motioned to them and urged them back." He then "advised Kline that it would be dangerous to attempt making arrests, and that they had better leave." Kline, after saying he would hold them accountable for the fugitives, promised to leave, and beckoned two or three times to his men to retire.

The negroes then rushed up, some armed with guns, some with corn-cutters, staves, or clubs, others with stones or whatever weapon chance offered. Hanway and Lewis in vain endeavored to restrain them.

Kline leaped the fence, passed through the standing grain in the field, and for a few moments was out of sight. Mr. Gorsuch refused to leave the spot, saying his "property was there, and he would have it or perish in the attempt." The rest of his party endeavored to retreat when they heard the Marshal calling to them, but they were too late; the negroes rushed up, and the firing began. How many times each party fired, it is impossible to tell. For a few moments everything was confusion, and each attempted to save himself. Nathan Nelson went down the short land, thence into the woods and towards Penningtonville. Nicholas Hutchings, by direction of Kline, followed Lewis to see where he went. Thomas Pierce and Joshua Gorsuch went down the long lane, pursued by some of the negroes, caught up with Hanway, and, shielding themselves behind his horse, followed him to a stream of water near by. Dickinson Gorsuch was with his father near the house. They were both wounded; the father mortally. Dickinson escaped down the lane, where he was met by Kline, who had returned from the woods at the end of the field. Kline rendered him assistance, and went towards Penningtonville for a physician. On his way he met Joshua M. Gorsuch, who was also wounded and delirious. Kline led him over to Penningtonville and placed him on the upward train from Philadelphia. Before this time several persons living in the neighborhood had arrived at Parker's house. Lewis Cooper found Dickinson Gorsuch in the place where Kline had left him, attended by Joseph Scarlett. He placed him in his dearborn, and carried him to the house of Levi Pownall, where he remained till he had sufficiently recovered to return home. Mr. Cooper then returned to Parker's, placed the body of Mr. Edward Gorsuch in the same dearborn, and carried it to Christiana. Neither Nelson nor Hutchings rejoined their party, but during the day went by the railroad to Lancaster.

Thus ended an occurrence which was the theme of conversation throughout the land. Not more than two hours elapsed from the time demand was first made at Parker's house until the dead body of Edward Gorsuch was carried to Christiana. In that brief time the blood of strangers had been spilled in a sudden affray, an unfortunate man had been killed, and two others badly wounded.

When rumor spread abroad the result of the affray, the neighborhood was appalled. The inhabitants of the farm-houses and the villages around, unused to such scenes, could not at first believe that it had occurred in their midst. Before midday, exaggerated accounts had reached Philadelphia, and were transmitted by telegraph throughout the country.

Many persons were arrested for participation in the riot; and, after a long imprisonment, were arraigned for trial, on the charge of treason, before Judges Grier and Kane, of the United States Court, sitting at Philadelphia.

Every one knows the result. The prisoners were all acquitted; and the country was aroused to the danger of a law which allowed bad men to incarcerate peaceful citizens for months in prison, and put them in peril of their lives, for refusing to aid in entrapping, and sending back to hopeless slavery, men struggling for the very same freedom we value as the best part of our birthright.

The Freedman's narrative is now resumed.

A short time after the events narrated in the preceding number, it was whispered about that the slaveholders intended to make an attack on my house; but, as I had often been threatened, I gave the report little attention. About the same time, however, two letters were found thrown carelessly about, as if to attract notice. These letters stated that kidnappers would be at my house on a certain night, and warned me to be on my guard. Still I did not let the matter trouble me. But it was no idle rumor. The bloodhounds were upon my track.

I was not at this time aware that in the city of Philadelphia there was a band of devoted, determined men,—few in number, but strong in purpose,—who were fully resolved to leave no means untried to thwart the barbarous and inhuman monsters who crawled in the gloom of midnight, like the ferocious tiger, and, stealthily springing on their unsuspecting victims, seized, bound, and hurled them into the ever open jaws of Slavery. Under the pretext of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, the slaveholders did not hesitate to violate all other laws made for the good government and protection of society, and converted the old State of Pennsylvania, so long the hope of the fleeing bondman, wearied and heartbroken, into a common hunting-ground for their human prey. But this little band of true patriots in Philadelphia united for the purpose of standing between the pursuer and the pursued, the kidnapper and his victim, and, regardless of all personal considerations, were ever on the alert, ready to sound the alarm to save their fellows from a fate far more to be dreaded than death. In this they had frequently succeeded, and many times had turned the hunter home bootless of his prey. They began their operations at the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, and had thoroughly examined all matters connected with it, and were perfectly cognizant of the plans adopted to carry out its provisions in Pennsylvania, and, through a correspondence with reliable persons in various sections of the South, were enabled to know these hunters of men, their agents, spies, tools, and betrayers. They knew who performed this work in Richmond, Alexandria, Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Lancaster, and Harrisburg, those principal depots of villany, where organized bands prowled about at all times, ready to entrap the unwary fugitive.

They also discovered that this nefarious business was conducted mainly through one channel; for, spite of man's inclination to vice and crime, there are but few men, thank God, so low in the scale of humanity as to be willing to degrade themselves by doing the dirty work of four-legged bloodhounds. Yet such men, actuated by the love of gold and their own base and brutal natures, were found ready for the work. These fellows consorted with constables, police-officers, aldermen, and even with learned members of the legal profession, who disgraced their respectable calling by low, contemptible arts, and were willing to clasp hands with the lowest ruffian in order to pocket the reward that was the price of blood. Every facility was offered these bad men; and whether it was night or day, it was only necessary to whisper in a certain circle that a negro was to be caught, and horses and wagons, men and officers, spies and betrayers, were ready, at the shortest notice, armed and equipped, and eager for the chase.