Other Times, other Manners. 239 



dered for perusal, the following challenge, which he 

 stated he had received that very morning from the 

 aforesaid Mr. James Rose, or James Rose, Esq :— 

 To Jacob Benser, 

 Berbice, 1824. 



Dare Sir; — If you is a man to walk down to the back 

 dam to-night at seven o'clock or to-morrow at eleven 

 o'clock at the Colony town, then i will speak with you 

 then with my hands. 



James Rose, 



20 May, 1824. 



"Mr. Bensor, we understand, then made a forcible 

 appeal to the passions of his learned auditors, contend- 

 ing that no man of his rank in life could tamely put up 

 with an insult, or remain inactive — even though his con- 

 tempt for his antagonist was astonishingly great — after 

 the receipt of such a taunting defiance as was contained 

 in Mr. Rose's epistle. He asserted that his honor was 

 dearer to him than his life, and that the one should not 

 be sacrificed, but with the sacrifice of the other." 



Bensor was bound over to keep the peace. The 

 "Colony town" was the Berbice Winkel Department, 

 v/here both parties were employed, i.e.^ they were 

 Colony slaves. 



The advertisements of Runaways were often very 

 curious. Of one man it was said that he played a good 

 fiddle, and in a Barbados paper a mulatto boy named 

 Tom was said to have had " his wool cut in the fashion- 

 able cockatoo stile^^ whatever that might mean. The 

 negro boy Neptune " makes a bold pert reply — he is a 

 little bow-legged, and was on his exit lame on his left 

 foot. The Negro man Ernest "is chiefly harboured by 



HH 



