THE BLACK AND WHITE QUESTION.
“The game is made, gentlemen, choose your colour.”
AMONGST the many important topics which at present excite a popular interest, must be reckoned the great question whether the West Indian apprentices ought or ought not to be considered ought of their time? A subject presenting such very strong lights and shadows, necessarily produces a powerful and Rembrandt-like effect on the public mind; nevertheless, it is only lately and accidentally, that I have been induced to look critically into the colouring and handling of the picture. It is not my wont to walk wilfully on Debatable Ground; but in the present instance, I was seduced involuntarily into the dangerous confines of “all we love and all we hate,” the borderland, where party contends with party.
A few days ago, I was giving an order to a tradesman in the Strand—not far from Warren’s—when, to the utter surprise and disconcertment of the master of the shop, a poor African stepped in from the street, and, with an obsequious bow, made an offer of his sable services for a term of years.
“MASSA, YOU WANT A ’PRENTICE?”