EDITORIAL NOTES. 



THE SECOND installment of Mrs. Grote's story of Shepherdstown, 

 I which appears in this number, completes the ceremony of intro- 

 duction between the reader and the people of Shepherdstown at the 

 time with which the story deals. Many persons who did not feel the 

 Southern pulse in anti-bell um times, as Mrs. Grote did, will probably 

 be surprised at some of the expressions which she records as having 

 been uttered by the characters of her history — for the story is really 

 a record of actual occurences. The impression of one of the juvenile 

 characters that Yankees had something like turnip juice instead of 

 blood seems almost incredible but Mrs. Grote assures us that the 

 utterances which she records in regard to this matter were actually 

 made. She tells us, moreover, that it was a most beautiful and refined 

 young lady of 19 who said : " Please, Cousin Helen, don't call them 

 negroes ; it makes me so mad to hear you say negro ; they are niggers ; 

 and as for me, I don't care what the North says or thinks about it, I 

 hope that slavery never will die out ; I want always to have a lot of 

 little niggers to box and order round." 



THIS NUMBER contains many excellent contributions, every one 

 of which is from t'.ie pen of a Staten Islander, and, taken with those 

 contained in the first number, they form a collection which few Staten 

 Islanders would have believed it possible to gather together before 

 this venture was undertaken. Every Staten Islander who has the 

 ability to write interesting articles and can afford the time to write 

 them in, should send their manuscript to the Publisher, for as they 

 have been entertained by the articles written by their neighbors, so 

 might those neighbors be interested in the articles produced by them. 

 There are many things concerning Staten Island which should be 

 made more extensively known and it is to be hoped that persons 

 having such things in their possession will send them in. 



