A. No, madam.
Q. Did you not attend the Sabbath-school held there for the instruction of negro children?
A. I went there, occasionally, and lectured to them.
Q. Did you not distribute books among them?
A. The ladies had all to do with that!
Q. When you visited that school, did you not instruct them yourself?
To this question he replied very sharply,—thus evincing his name to be indicative of his character and disposition,—that they did not teach them to read and write, and that he did not know that the law prohibited religious and moral instruction to negroes.
I answered, “If you, sir, who are engaged in the practice of the law, did not know it, how could it be expected that I should?”
“Madam?” said he, as though he did not understand me. I repeated the question, and he then addressed the Judge, and asked permission to say what he had to communicate directly to the jury. I made no objection, and he proceeded to state as follows:—
That certain negroes applied to Rev. Mr. Cummings, the Pastor of Christ’s Church, for religious instruction, and were allowed to meet for that purpose in the lecture room of the church. He (Sharp) occasionally visited the school and lectured to them. He found that some of them could read very well, but that when they came to the hard words, he allowed them to skip over them!