It will always remain a secret “who struck Billy Patterson” and why the noble governor of Georgia should be surnamed Bullock, for in personal appearance he bears not the slightest resemblance to that fiery, untamed animal. It is true, he has a handsome shock of hair on his head, but he is as destitute of horns as the administration is of knavery, and a better looking white man is seldom to be found.
Most noticeable on the platform was Simeon Beard, chairman of the Georgia delegation, a man whose superb oratory and strange personal appearance are most difficult to describe. Take away the prejudice of the race which, alas! descends to us in the same way as the color of our eyes or the length of our hair—a prejudice which education, prayer, or any other softening, refining influence of civilization never can remove—rend this veil asunder, and we should see a man that we could honor as President.
Simeon Beard has the lithe, erect form, and the smooth, raven locks of the Indian. Both African and white blood course in his veins; his complexion is that pale, rich brown—the same color with which nature loves to tinge the leaves in mid-autumn. But the spirit of some animal long kept at bay looks out of his deepset eyes, and his words burn as if they had been forged in a redhot furnace. He made the audience feel the print of the nails in far-away Georgia. Only a little longer will Frederick Douglass stand the acknowledged mouthpiece of the mixed races and the darker stratum which underlies it.
Simeon Beard was followed by a Texan, Mr. Ruby, another member of the proscribed family. How shall we describe this swarthy man, who appeared to be made up of sharp, glittering points, and who seems to bear the same relation to the human family that a dagger does to other weapons? He had the indescribable sway of the body of the children of the sunny climes. When his youthful face appeared it did not seem possible that he had the essential requisites to address such an audience, but surprise gave way to admiration and applause. He spoke in behalf of Georgia, asking nothing for Texas. “Why is it,” asked the speaker, “that the same atrocious state of affairs does not exist in middle and western Texas as in Georgia to-day?” Lowering his voice until it hissed, “I’ll tell you; when a Union man was killed a rebel was made to bite the dust. Only one man was shot in my neighborhood. He was a poor colored preacher who had started a school. Some men disguised went in broad daylight and shot him in the schoolroom. Mind ye, he was a poor man with no friends; but every man engaged in that day’s work was hunted down. We killed them as we would so many reptiles (raising his voice until it sounded like a musical instrument); that is the way we stamped out treason in our part of the world.”
A colored man of polished education followed this fierce and war-like Texan. His words were admirably chosen. The glowing appeals flowing from the lips of Messrs. Beard and Ruby seemed like the virgin ore torn from the rocks where it had been imbedded for ages. The smooth, handsome sentences of Professor Langston fell from his tongue like coin from the mint, each word having an appreciable value. Professor Langston is at present at the head of the law department in the Howard University. He was born in Maryland, of slave parentage, but was emancipated at a very early age, and received a thorough classical education through the indulgence of his paternal ancestor. After leaving college he studied law, and he now occupies one of the most honorable positions in the country. Like all of his race at the capital, he takes the deepest interest in the welfare of the freedmen farther South. The delegation earnestly asks that the Bingham-Farnsworth amendment, which is tacked on to the last law of reconstruction, may be crushed in the Senate, as its passage would hand the loyal element to the tender keeping of the late masters of Andersonville and Salisbury.
Olivia.
[THE TREASURY TRIO.]
Wyman, Tuttle and Spinner Guard the Treasury Deposits—Jewels in Storage.