Book People Archive

Now playing at Naked Word

Now playing on The Naked Word's single screen: The Young Engineers on the
Gulf, by H. Irving Hancock.

Visit http://members.aol.com/nakedword/, download today and include it in
your own collection. It'll be in place only until the next book is ready.

When reading the following extract, please remember that it was written by
and for our unevolved ancestors of, lo, 80 years ago.

[snip]
       Tom took the steel bracelets, ordering Mr. Sambo Ebony to turn over
and lie face downward, with his hands behind his back. Then the handcuffs
were slipped over the black wrists.
       "Now, Sambo," called Tom laughingly, "we'll set you on your feet and
whistle the rogues' march for you all the way."
       "Yah, yah, yah!" jeered one of the negroes who had come up with
Foreman Corbett, as he gazed contemptuously up and down the bulky figure of
Mr. Ebony. "Yo' done been tellin' us 'spectable cullud fo'ks dat de great way
to injye life was to be tough an' smaht, lak yo'se'f. How yo' feel erbout it
now? Doan' yo' wish yo' been mo' 'spectable yo'se'f? Doan' yo' done wish dat
yo' had been to camp-meeting a few times in yo' life? Doan' yo' wish yo' been
honest most er de time, an' been a hahd-wo'kin', pay-yo'-bills niggah lak
some ob de rest ob us? Yo' fool lump er tar, yo' boun' ter go de way ob all
de wicked-- down to yo' grave in misery an' sorrow. It's de way ob all
ob yo' lazy, ugly, wuthless kind!"
       "I've heard philosophers talk," laughed Dick, in an aside to Tom
Reade, "but I can't say that I ever yet listened to a trained philosopher who
had the truth of life down any more pat than the negro workman who just now
gave his views."
       "On all matters of good behavior wise men of all degrees hold about
the same views," nodded Reade, "even though they may express their thoughts
in differing grades of speech. This good negro knows just where the bad negro
has failed in life."
[/snip]

Jim Weiler   
The Naked Word