Report of the Twentieth National Anti-Slavery Bazaar

by A. W. Weston

The brightness of the New Year of 1854 did not fall without its shadows on the community of which we make a part. The storm of the 28th and 29th of December, unprecedented in severity, for many years, had brought to some homes actual bereavement or severe pecuniary loss, to many, serious annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety, and to all, that subduing, saddening influence which is experienced, however temporarily, when any “great outrages of weather” unsettle the thoughtless security as to life and safety, that usually pervades the public mind. For several days, the mails were stopped, and almost all communication with the environs of Boston cut off. When tidings could arrive, and nearly every hour brought fresh intelligence of peril, disaster or shipwreck, and the very aspect of nature herself seemed redolent of melancholy suggestion, it certainly would not be unnatural if, in some minds, the whole coloring of thought assumed a graver and more sober hue. This has been the case with ourselves. The Bazaar of 1853 has closed with what we are entitled, in our circumstances, to estimate as brilliant success, the receipts being four thousand two hundred and fifty-six dollars; and yet we feel impelled to a more thoughtful and serious train of remark than may, at first view, appear natural or appropriate. To the minds of most persons, the mention of a Ladies’ Bazaar suggests ideas of a purely gay and festal character; of an occasion, where it is well if the gaiety and festivity do not degenerate into mere thoughtlessness and frivolity. How it may be in Bazaars designed for the support of popular charities, we are unable to say; but, when we are speaking of one whose funds are devoted to the sustentation of the American Anti-Slavery Society, we assure all who are willing to listen, that ours is grave work, performed in any but a thoughtless and irresponsible spirit.

Let us recal, for a moment, the written records of thought and feeling that accompany the exquisite and beautiful donations of which the Bazaar is made up. These latter suggest only ideas of taste, and skill, and elegant leisure, and abundant wealth; and the looker-on can hardly do else than associate such brightness of coloring and harmony of tint, with the glow of health and happiness. But with these suggestions, do the facts accord? Far from it. From the homes of actual poverty, from young girls painfully earning their own bread, and yet saving something to purchase the material that shall be fashioned into the gay clothing, never to be worn for their own decoration, from the chambers of sickness and languor, and hopeless disease, from Asylums for the Blind, from schools that charity has established for the help of the wholly indigent,—​it is from sources like these, that very great and valuable assistance is obtained. True, the gifts of the happy and the prosperous are here also; the glittering ornament, that has graced many a gay pageant; the exquisite picture, in which the painter has made real his happiest conception, or recalled some favorite scene; the admired and successful volume, fresh from the hands of its author. The minister of religion, the philosopher, the artist, and the poet, have given us of their best, have freely contributed that spiritual and ideal wealth, whose price is above rubies. But all these gifts, however diverse their source, come to us with words of the most earnest encouragement, with assurances of exhaustless sympathy, and promises of continued support. Much of the help thus given, by deed and word, is sent from other lands. To the moral beauty of the contribution, it adds not a little, in our eyes, that such is the case. The fact itself furnishes a most invigorating testimony to the truth of the principle on which the Anti-Slavery enterprise is based. By a spontaneous conviction, overmastering nationalities, and usage, and creed, and language, men differing world-wide in all beside, are laboring together in the promulgation of the cardinal doctrine of our Anti-Slavery creed, that under no conceivable circumstances, can one man hold another as goods and chattels.

We have barely indicated the sources and the motives, from, and by which, the donations to the Bazaar are obtained. Suffer us, on behalf of the immediate managers and promoters of this effort, to assure these generous donors, that they are received in a spirit not wholly unworthy of the great work to which they are consecrated. Our distant friends cannot know the difficulties and discouragements that, at every step, beset such an undertaking as ours. It is the twentieth Bazaar that has just closed. The interest afforded by novelty and a spirit of adventure has long since died away. The number of Abolitionists in the city which sent back Thomas Sims is necessarily small; and, of that small number, only a few are so situated as to give to the Bazaar much earnest and effective labor. Many of the Committee do not reside in Boston, and several of its most efficient members are absent from the country.

Within the last two years, two of those who have been co-workers with us almost from the beginning of the conflict, have passed onward to a higher service. The example of a long life, devoted to deeds of self-sacrificing beneficence, the memory of beauty and genius, and gifts still more excellent than either beauty or genius,—​these are all that remain to us.

Of the thousand petty toils, and wearying annoyances, and uncongenial duties that attend the Bazaar, we will not speak. They would be burdensome under any circumstances; for buying and selling, even when viewed as a prelude to getting gain, is not in itself an interesting occupation. Neither do we dwell on the misunderstandings and misrepresentations, and absence of popular sympathy, to which our position exposes us.

Why, then, do we refer to all this? Not, certainly, for the purpose of discouraging or saddening a single heart that has ever bade us God speed.

There is a practice in the Catholic Church, which, Protestant as we are, attracts our sympathy. Any suffering, no matter how earthly its character, any labor, however mundane and common-place, becomes ennobled and sanctified, if removed from the category of common duties, and performed as a religious offering. Let it be so with this annual Bazaar. The prayers and blessings interwoven with so many memorials of patient toil, the gifts that enrich it, alike of the high and the low, the happy and the sorrowing, the self-sacrifice that marks every step of its progress, the weariness, care and anxiety that are its necessary attendants, let us, as it were, cast them all upon the altar of our faith, remembering, as we do so, the words, “To do good and communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.”

From the following towns and cities in Great Britain, large and valuable donations were received:—​Liverpool, Bristol, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Dublin and Cork.

We have peculiar pleasure in the reception of the Liverpool Box, as it is the first we have ever received from that town. The close connection, too, that exists between Liverpool and the United States, renders it doubly valuable. Probably no town in the United Kingdom is so pro-slavery in its sympathies as Liverpool, and hence, by help from such a quarter, we are the more encouraged. We are aware how much we owe to the influence of the Rev. Francis Bishop, whose travels a year or two since in this country, contrary to the usual experience of English gentlemen, particularly clergymen, seems but to have deepened his horror of American Slavery, and called forth his most strenuous efforts for its extinction.

The Bristol Box included collections from Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bridgwater, Bath, Frenchay, Chatham, Southampton, Isle of Wight, Yarmouth and Chudleigh. As usual, almost all the articles were pretty and well chosen, and some, particularly elegant and valuable. This was especially the case in respect to the Honiton Lace. A great part of it, (and several very handsome articles were received besides those contained in the Bristol box,) was sold on the very first morning the Bazaar opened. A very beautiful Honiton Lace Pin Cushion, with the word Liberty formed in the work, the gift of the lace-maker, was greatly admired, and sold readily. The Basket Work was eagerly sought for, and, indeed, most of the Bristol articles found a good market.