1835.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



289 



tacking slavery slowly ami gradually,) may cause rep- 

 etitions of such events, and their equally deplorable 

 consequences: but they will only serve to destroy 

 whatever amount of happiness and contentment is now 

 enjoyed by our slaves, and produce to them misery, if 

 not destruction, without there being a semblance of 

 hope for effecting, by any of their efforts, the object of 

 a peaceable extinction of slavery, and elevation of the 

 condition of the blacks to equality of right and power 

 with the whites. • 



It would be useless to remonstrate with the abolit on 

 societies and their leaders — to address ourselves to the 

 reason of men who insantly expect to reach their ob- 

 jects through the desperate means which they use — 

 or to appeal to the sense of rectitude of any, who, 

 even for a desirable end, would willingly resort to 

 means so abominable — so murderous in their tendency. 

 But we would address our language of complaint and 

 of warning, to the great majority of the citizens of the 

 northern states — who declare themselves friends to the 

 south, and utterly opposed to the schemes of the abo- 

 litionists — in the hope of inducing them to exert their 

 counteracting influence, and to put down the nuisance — 

 to use the power which the great body of any commu- 

 nity on the right side must always have over a very 

 small portion, considered by that majority as altogeth- 

 er in the wrong. We would ask of the reflecting, to 

 say whether the movements of the abolition societies 

 are likely to effect their avowed object, even if the 

 object is thought desirable — and of the prudent and 

 calculating, to consider whether any results disastrous 

 to the interests of the south, would not also necessarily 

 and greatly injure the interests of -the north. 



We are assured, from the north, as with one voice, 

 that the abolitionists are but a few, scorned and con- 

 temned by the people generally, and by all of worth 

 and high character. Still this despised handful of men, 

 call and hold public meetings to disseminate their doc- 

 trines, in every town — have openly established, and 

 keep in operation, presses to flood the south w T ith incen- 

 diary publications — and instead of being put down by 

 the force of what is said to be the public and general 

 opinion, are permitted to proceed in their course without 

 impediment of any kind. The reply is ready, that 

 these acts, however detestable, are not in violation of 

 existing laws, and therefore cannot be restrained. It 

 is not for us to point out the remedy — but we beg 

 leave to submit a similar case for illustration. 



The people of the southern states are very generally 

 opposed to the policy of forcing manufacturing, or 

 other pursuits of industry, by protecting duties — by the 

 operation of which, it is considered, that they and their 

 country are heavily, unjustly, and illegally burdened, 

 to furnish millions in indirect bounties, to northern 

 capitalists. Very many of us in the south, upon gen- 

 eral principles, as well as in regard to our general in- 

 terests, are as hostile to this policy, as any calm and 

 dispassionate abolitionists can be to the existence of 

 negro slavery. Now suppose that a few thousand of 

 our zealots — (for they are to be found in all parties and 

 sects — ) were to earn* to such excess their hatred of 



Vol. Ill— 37 



tiiis iniquitous policy of our government, as openly to 

 league for its destruction, by inflicting loss and destruc- 

 tion on the interests and persons supported and enrich- 

 ed by protecting duties — that they provided materials 

 and employed agents to burn the factories of the north, 

 and to poison the proprietors and superintendents: that 

 under a philanthropic horror of the enormous mass of 

 suffering which is certain soon to reach, and then for- 

 ever to attend the laboring manufacturers, (far worse 

 than the sufferings of our negro slaves—) that all 

 means of seduction w r ere addressed to this class, in- 

 cluding the plunder of their employers' property, to 

 urge their joining in and becoming the most efficient 

 agents of the work of destruction. Suppose that the 

 preparation of means for these ends was carried on 

 without disguise — that proselytes to the hellish design 

 were continually and zealously sought by public meet- 

 ings, and publications, in many southern towns — that 

 the leaders and principal actors were all known, and 

 even proud of their notoriety — and that nothing was 

 hidden except the operations of their emissaries, at- 

 tempted or executed in the northern states. Suppose 

 farther, that with all this unlimited malignity of inten- 

 tion, the actual effects produced were comparatively 

 trivial, and that the northern manufacturers, in fact, 

 feared their enemies as little as slave holders have to 

 dread the now avowed abolitionists: still — would such a 

 state of things, and its evident increase, be patiently 

 borne by the north, and the southern states be held as 

 friendly? Would the plea be valid that "these villain- 

 ous plotters were but a few, held in detestation and 

 contempt by the great body of southern people, who 

 would rejoice no less than their northern brethren, to 

 see such miscreants meet with merited punishment, if 

 the laws were such as to permit any to be inflicted: 

 but that no existing laws had been violated by the 

 known acts of these men in the south — and when they 

 carried their proceedings to the northern states, it 

 would be for the latter to apply the proper punish- 

 ments — in the propriety of which, (and in aid of which, 

 if necessary,) the south would heartily concur." It 

 such declarations w r 6uld serve to justify us in the opin- 

 ions of our northern brethren, we ought to receive as 

 equally entitled to respect the reasons given for the im- 

 punity and unmolested progress of the bold and open 

 conspirators and incendiaries of the abolition school. 



From the Arcana of Science. 

 HOUSE FLIES. 



On April 7, the Secretary of the Entomological 

 Society read a paper by Mr. Spence, detailing a 

 a curious mode, adopted in Italy, of excluding the 

 house fly from house?. The plan consisted simply 

 in straining a net, made of white thread, across 

 the aperture of an open window: the meshes of 

 the net were about half an inch in diameter. It 

 had occured to Mr. Spence, whether it could be the 

 dread of a spider's net which caused the flies to 

 avoid the thread net, but on consideration he had 

 determined otherwise; and he was totally at a Jos* 

 how to account ibr so singular a circumstance. 



