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October, 1860  DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 351

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manifested by the South and by our Democratic Administration, to catch Mr. Douglass charging him with complicity with John Brown in the Harper's Ferry affair.  Government Marshals and skulking detectives were as plenty in Rochester as beggars in London and knowing that if complicity could not be proved, it could be proved that he was guilty of being Fred. Douglass, which at the South was crime enough to hang him on the first tree, he concluded the safer part of true valor was to cross the ferry, and do a little business in England.  The people, having in some measure come to their senses in the matter of John Brown, he has returned to his home in Rochester, and having been announced to speak on this occasion, was publicly welcomed back by the chair, with warm and hearty expressions of cheer and gratulation.
   Mr. Douglass then took the stand and occupied two hours in a speech of wonderful strength and power.  His late trials and  afflictions seem to have inspired him with unwonted energy and eloquence.  His hatred of slavery seems to have been intensified.  He showed the workings of slavery in all its ramified influences and cruelties, and did not fail to show the part the Sham Democracy of this country were acting in this matter.  If his ambitious namesake had been present, and heard the black man, he would have found it necessary to leave the Presidential stump for a few days that he might apply a sufficient quantity of cabbage leaves to his blisters.--While he regards the Republican party as failing fully to meet the demands of the Declaration of Independence, and to carry out the true measure and spirit of freedom, he concedes to that party all that there is that is hopeful in the land-that it is progressive with the age in the right direction, and he greatly desires to see the White House, at Washington, which has been so shamefully disgraced for the last four years, occupied for the next four years by an honest man-Abraham Lincoln.
   Mr. D. was followed in a short speech by Mr. Mallett, one of the associates of the Rev. John G Fee in Kentucky, and now, with scores of others, wandering exiles in the free States, having been ostracised from Kentucky for entertaining an anti slavery sentiment.- He gave a graphic account of the wrongs and cruelties they suffered at the hands of the slave mob, and of their banishment from their homes.  So it seems that the land of whips sends us black fugitive slaves and white exiled slaves.  Let us increase our Underground Railroad facilities.

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       A THRILLING AND TRUE STORY.
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   In our Monthly for August we give the particulars of the kidnapping of three colored men from Clifton, Illinois.  Since then new light has been thrown upon the affair, and the Chicago Tribune re-produces what has heretofore been published, and such additional facts as have come to its knowledge.

   On Sunday, June 3d, three colored men, living in or near Clifton-a village near Ashkum, a station on the Illinois Central R.R., about sixty miles from Chicago-were enticed by seven or eight whites into a country store or grocery, and then there, were pounced upon by their armed decoys, now turned assailants, and under threat of instant death from revolvers pointed at their breasts, were compelled to submit to the commands of those who, by force and fraud, had overpowered them.  They were instantly hurried off to Ashkum, and their captors, having timed their movements to correspond with the motions of the down train, thrust their prey, still guarded by an array of pistols and bowie knives, into the cars, and bore the poor men off.  All this was accomplished without a process of any sort-by brute force alone, illegally and diabolically.  The indignation of the quiet community in which this occurred was thoroughly aroused by the outrage; but all parties-the wronged and the wrong doers-were gone-hid in a slave State, under the 
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shadow of the institution that justifies all such atrocities, and everybody despaired of being able to bring the captives back, or the scoundrels to the punishment that they had richly earned.
   The kidnapped men were carried to St. Louis as fast as steam could convey them, jealously guarded all the way.  Arrived there, they were thrust into a negro pen, which still disgraces that Free Soil city, and the work, with a view to the profits of the great crime, was commenced.  In answer to the inquiry directed to each, 'Who is your master?' one averred that he was then, and always had been, a free man; another refused to answer; while the third, the man Jim, said that he had been the property of Aime Pernard, a farmer near Carondelet, seven miles from the city.  The man who claimed to be free, and his silent fellow prisoner, WERE TIED UP AND CRUELLY FLOGGED, the one to refresh his recollection of the servitude that his captors suspected, and the other to open his mouth to a confession which he would not make.-
Whipping proved of no avail; other forms of cruelty - hunger the most potent - were tried, but with no better success.  At last, both these men - one torn ruthlessly from his wife and children, and the other from a neighborhood in which his interest had made him respected, and each from a life of freedom and enjoyment - WERE SENT SOUTH AND SOLD. -  They were made prisoners of war, and as such, in this time of peace, were compelled to submit to their captor's will.
   While this whipping, shipping and selling was going on, Aime Pernard, the owner of Jim, was visited by one of the kidnappers. - [[italics]] He went with offers to buy Jim, [[/italics]] running - buy the chances of a capture after five years of absence.  One hundred dollars was the sum named for this fugitive piece of flesh and blood.  But it was indignantly refused.  The sum was doubled, trebled, quadrupled, and at last multiplied by ten; but all temptations failed to get them a legal title to their prey.  They served this purpose, however:- The owner's suspicions were aroused by the amount offered by the scoundrels, and their unconcealed eagerness to effect a trade.  On Saturday, then, a week after the capture, he sent a negro woman into St. Louis - the woman, by the way, the mother of Jim - to make the inquiries that the case seemed to demand.
   Her mother's instincts led her to the right place.  Admitted to the pen, she recognized her son - learned from his lips his sufferings and danger - and then with such speed as she could command, hurried back to the master's house.  Her story sent him into the city and to the slave pen direct.  Jim's story was repeated with such emphasis and particularity that every drop of that master's blood tingled in his veins.  His haggard appearance, his wounds and marks of stripes attested to the master's sight the truth of the words that fell upon his ears.  He called the keeper of the place, commanded the humane treatment of his property, and left with the promise that he would return and relieve him of his charge.  This happened to be on Sunday morning.  Bright and early on the day following, Aime Pernard appeared again at the prison gate.  To pay the sum ($100) allowed by the law of the State to the captors of a fugitive, the jail fees amounting to $35 more, and to rig Jim out in a new suit, which his master had brought along, was but a half hour's work  When done, the two went back to Carondelet, Jim yet doubtful of his fate.  But after a day or two, his case was talked over between his master and himself; and when we state the result, we afford proof of Jim's eloquence and the generosity and nobleness of the master's heart.  [[italics]] Jim's free papers were made out,[[/italics]] his stock of money considerably increased, a ticket to Clifton was put into his hand, and walking proudly by the side of his late master - now protector and friend - the two crossed the Mississippi into Illinois.  Here seating him in the northern train, the master, with tears flowing down his cheeks, and a warm pressure of the hand,
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bade Jim good-bye, and invoked for him God's blessing to speed him on his way!

   On Wednesday evening, Jim made his appearance suddenly and without warning at Clifton, where he had been carried off.  He was waving his free papers over his head. - A little crowd collected around him, and he briefly related his adventures, and the kindness of that master.  A gentleman harnessed a horse to take him to the farm where he had been employed, and another, with rare consideration, rode off to warm Jim's wife of his return and coming.  'Niggers have no feelings.  It don't hurt them to have their domestic life made a play-thing of white men's cupidity and lust,' say the man-sellers.  That strong woman's cry of joy as she clasped her husband in her arms; her devout thanksgiving to God that her life was not left all dark; her breaking down under the flood of emotion which the glad event aroused; her sobs and plaints, interrupted only by united prayers to the Father of white and black alike; that deep feeling that Jim displayed; the delicious joy ennobled by the new consciousness of freedom and security in the possession of a wife and home - these, leaving not a dry eye in that little crowd of lookers-on, disprove the slander.  And to-day the relation of the scene at that meeting, even in Clifton where it is a thrice-told tale, brings tears from eyes that are unused to weep.
   There is not much to add to this narrative.  The ladies of Clifton, moved by the rare generosity of Aime Pernard, united in a letter thanking him in warm terms for what he had done, and inviting him to pay them a visit at his earliest convenience, that they might in person point out to him the evidences of the good he had done.  We are permitted to print his reply:

[[italics]]Caronelet,[[/italics]] Aug.1, 1860

LADIES:- Owing to absence from home I did not receive your favor of the 11 h and 13th ult. immediately upon its arrival here; hence the tardiness of my reply.
   The receipt of such a beautiful and unexpected letter from the fair ladies of Clifton, with many of whom I have not yet had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, giving a spontaneous and disinterested expression of their feelings in regard to a simple act of kindness, is indeed gratifying, and, I assure you, will ever be a source of the most pleasant recollection to me.
   Living, as I do, in a slave State, I have, during the greater part of my residence here, had a family of negroes to assist me in the cultivation of my small farm, and to attend to the affairs of my household.  They have worked with me, side by side, in the corn field, and have shared with me the profits and benefits of our labor.
   Whether I have been regarded by them more in the light of a father and benefactor, than in the capacity of a cruel and heartless master, can best by attested by themselves.  I have never sold a slave, for I cannot traffic in human blood.  I have, however, made many of that family happy, by placing them in a condition where they might work for themselves, and in a climate of their own choice.
   James did wrong in leaving my house without informing me of his intentions.  He ought to have known that he had no reason to fear my course, had he frankly avowed to me his wishes to settle in Illinois.  He left my home some five years ago, and although I have often been told of his whereabouts, I never took the slightest step to recover him, concluding that if he tho't he could do better elsewhere, than with me, he was welcome to the change.  Upon his being brought back to me, I was strongly urged to sell him, which I positively refused to do, believing that the money thus obtained would poison my pockets.  At his request, I gave him a pass, that he might be enabled to settle his affairs, and gather his crops at Clifton.
   Inasmuch as his return was the cause of so much joy to his wife, as well as satisfaction to the neighborhood, and being now fully convinced from your letter that he would prefer to remain at his present home in Illinois than live again in Missouri, I have determined to place no obstacle in the way of his future happiness.
   I shall, at the next Septemeber term of our Circuit Court, acknowledge the necessary papers and deed of manumission, giving James Salter his freedom unconditionally.  This will relieve him of all anxiety.