Chapter 8 THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

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Another evil that befell me about the same time, was equally afflicting. A negro-man that had fled from bondage in a neighbouring state, being sharply hunted, and about to be captured by the person that called him his property, I carried him to my house, and there concealed him for three days and mights, until his master had departed; "For," said I, "of a surety, slavery is a bitter pill, and one that cures neither the rheumatism nor the ague; and, therefore, why should my brother Pompey be compelled to swallow it?" My brother Pompey, having eaten, drunk, and slept at my expense for the three days mentioned, disappeared on the morning of the fourth before daylight, carrying with him twenty-seven pounds of silver, in spoons, teapots, and other vessels, the three watches belonging to myself, my nephew, and Abel Snipe, as well as Jonathan's best coat and trousers. Verily, I was confounded at the fellow's ingratitude, and the loss of my valuables, all of which, however, though broken up, it was my good fortune to recover, together with the three watches. The thief himself, being taken, was clapped into jail for a while, and then surrendered to his master, and carried back to bondage; and this stirring up the choler of the free Africans in town, they did naught but cry out upon me as the author of his misfortune, surrounding my house with a mob, and proceeding to the length of even burning it down. At least, the house taking fire, and manifestly by the act of an incendiary, it was charged by my friends upon these raging foolish people, though I was never able to prove it upon any one in particular. As my good fortune would have it, Abel Snipe had taken out a policy of ensurance, so that I recovered the money from the company; but not without going to law, the company averring that my humanity rendered me careless.

I caused another dwelling to be built; and, in building it, received another strong and inconvenient proof, not merely of man's ingratitude, but of his natural hostility to the charity which benefits his neighbours. I bought my marble out of the prison, in order to encourage industry among the prisoners, and thus lighten the load of taxation on the community at large. This being known, the marble-cutters fell into wrath, denounced me as the friend of villany and the enemy of honest industry; and being joined by the shoemakers, who had put me down in their character-book as a patron to none but prison-workmen, and by divers other mechanics that had some grudge of the same kind, they seized upon me, as I stood surveying my rising mansion, and bedaubed me from head to foot with thick whitewash, painting in great black letters, on the broad of my back, the following words, namely-"THE ROGUE'S FRIEND;" which caused me, after I had escaped from their hands, to be hooted at by boys and men along the street, and to be bitten by a great cur-dog, that was amazed at my appearance.

Another misfortune, still more distressing, befell me one day, as I walked among the western suburbs, seeking whom I might relieve. I espied a company of men surrounding a ring, made with stakes and ropes, in which two wretched creatures were stripping off their garments, with the intention to do battle upon one another with their fists. These were gentlemen of the fancy, as it is called; though imagination can paint nothing of a more grossly animal and brutish character, afar from all that is fanciful, than that very class that calls itself of the fancy. I was shocked that the poor creatures should, in their ignorance, agree to maul and beat one another, for the amusement of a mob; and I was concerned that a mob, containing so many rational beings, should be willing to harry on two such silly fellows to harm each other for their pastime. I stepped among them, therefore, and addressed them, exhorting them to peace and harmony; and this producing but little effect on them, I upbraided them with breaking the laws, both human and divine, and assured them I would go hunt up the police, to prevent the mischief they meditated. Alas! how ungratefully they used me! There was a man at a distance who was heating a great pot of tar, to pay the bottom of a canal-boat; and just a moment before, a carter had stopped to look on the affray, leaving on the roadside his cart, on which, among other articles of domestic furniture, was an old feather-bed, lying on the top of all. The devil had surely brought these things upon the ground, that his sinful children, the gentlemen of the fancy, might be at no loss how to testify their hatred of humanity. The very combatants themselves were the first to seize me, and cry out, "Tar and feather the old Bother'em! Douse down the bed, and dab the pot off the fire." And "Daub him well!" they cried, all the while that their wretched companions, drowning the cries I made for assistance, with savage yells of rage and merriment, covered me from head to foot with the nasty pitch, and then, tearing the bed to pieces, emptied its contents over my reeking body. Then, having feathered me all over, and so transformed me that I looked more like an ostrich than a human being, they tied me to a post, where I was forced to remain, looking upon the fight that immediately ensued between the champions. A horrid sight it was; but I was so devoured with shame and indignation, that I should have cared little had they dashed each other's brains out. So much I endured for exhorting men to live together in peace and amity.

The very beasts seemed to conspire to treat me with ingratitude. My first effort in their cause was an attempt I made one day, on the tow-path near the Water-Works, to protect a poor broken-down barge-horse, which the driver was cruelly beating. My interference cost me a dip in the basin, the man, who was both savage and strong, pitching me in headlong, and (what I deemed still more provoking) a kick from the horse, who let fly at me with his heels, merely because mine, as they were tripped into the air, came in contact with his hind-quarters; so that I was both lamed and half drowned for my charity.

In the same way, I was scratched half to death, and much more savagely than I had been before by the needle-women, by a cat that I took out of a dog's mouth,-without counting upon a nip that I had from the cur also. And, to end this small catalogue of animal ingratitude, I may say, that, within a fortnight after, I was served in the same way by a rat that I strove to liberate from the fangs of my own gray tabby; for, while Tabby was clawing at my fingers, the rat took me by the thumb; and between them I was near perishing with lockjaw, the weather being uncommonly hot, and the time midsummer.

There were a thousand other mischances of a like nature which befell me, but which I have not leisure to describe, nor even to enumerate. Some few of them, however, I think proper to record; but, to save space, I will clap them into a short list, along with those already mentioned, where they may be examined at a glance, and where, in that glance, the reader may perceive what are sometimes the rewards of philanthropy.

I. Beaten by a drunkard whom I had taken out of prison, and bailed to keep the peace.

II. Mulcted out of $100 surety-money, because my gentleman broke the peace by beating me.

III. Driven, and almost kicked, out of a man's workshop, because I asked payment of a loan made without bond or voucher.

IV. My nose pulled by a merchant to whom I had (out of charity to the latter, who was unfortunate) recommended a customer, who swindled him.

V. Rolled in the mud by the boys of my own charity-school, whom I had exhorted not to daub the passers-by.

VI. Abused by their parents for not paying them 25 cents per week for the time I had the boys at school.

VII. Hustled by tailors, slop-shopkeepers, and others, for taking part with the needle-women in a strike.

VIII. Scolded, scratched, and tumbled down stairs by the needle-women, for advising them to go into domestic service, and take care of their morals.

IX. Robbed by a fugitive slave whom I had concealed three days and nights in my house from his master.

X. House burnt down by the free blacks (or so it was suspected) for putting the thief as aforesaid into jail, so that his master got him.

XI. Whitewashed and libelled on my own back by the stonecutters, for buying wrought marble out of the prison.

XII. Tarred and feathered by a gang of the fancy, whom I exhorted at the ring to peace and amity.

XIII. Scalded at my own house (which I had converted, at a season of suffering, into a gratis soup-house), and with my own soup, by a beggar, because there was too little meat and too much salt in it.

XIV. Soused in the canal by a boat-driver, for rebuking his cruelty to an old barge-horse.

XV. Kicked by the horse for taking his part.

XVI. Scratched by a cat, for taking her out of a dog's mouth: item, bitten by the dog.

XVII. Bitten by a rat, which I rescued from a cat: item, scratched by the cat.

XVIII. Gored by a cow for helping her calf out of the mire: item, the calf splashed me all over with mud.

XIX. Beaten about the ears with a half-skinned eel, by a fishwoman, whom I reproved for skinning it alive.

Such were some of the unhappy circumstances that rewarded a seven months' life of philanthropy. But there were others to follow still more discouraging and afflicting.

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