Civil Rights Resisted.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1659, 12 June 1875, Page 5 (Supplement)

Civil Rights Resisted.

AN EPISODE IN" NEW OKLEANS

" So totj have broken up your circus; how did that happen ? ;>

"Well, sir, all of us boys had got leave to have our circus in the yard. We had a door-keeper at the alleygate, and charged two pins a ticket, but we didngt allow no dead-heads; only if a nurse brought a baby we didn't charge for the baby. All of us was blacked, some sung, some played on the bones, some were horses, and I was clown." "You must have made a nice clown.'' " I did that; all the boys said I was bully. Then we had a dog that could stand on his hind feet and march like a soldier, and he jumped through the hoop too. The house —that in, the yard—was crowded, and we struck two papers of pins every time. We got better and better, plenty of growed up people come, and we was making a first-rate season, you bet." " Why did you quit ? Did you quarrel among yourselves ?" " Oh, no; we was all friends and divided the pins equal. We didn't have no stars to take all and leare us to pay for the candles. No, sir." " What was the matter, then ?" " Well, sir, I'll tell you. You know Atmt Marget? J^o of course you don't. Well, she's a big, fat colored woman, with five or six ragged and dirty little children. She lives in a gallery room and could look down if she wanted to ; but she wasn't satisfied with a gallery seat, leastwise her chil- , dren wasn't. They come around and tried to get into the circus with the | white people, through the old bagging, you know, we had on one side. "Well, the door-keeper asked them ten pins; but that was only an excuse you knovv', and they didn't have any ten pins, and so they had to go away. But Aunt Margaret she heard all from the gallery, and she came down in the greatest rage. She says,' What you mean, you white trash, by 'fusin to let my chillun into you show? I'm good as you, and dey is as good as you; and de law is made for dem as well as for you, an' you ain't so pitched white yourselves, for you has gone and blacked your face to ekalize yourself with a nigger1'" "We said we wasn't gtfin' to let no colored persons in without they paid up ten pins at the door. Then Aunt Margaret came down from the gallery and put her hands on her hips, just so. fche said, 'Look, a here white boys, is you gwine to let my chillun in ? I'm livin' here, I pays my rent an' you is on my primissis, and Pm titled to se all dat comes into dis yard. I'm on the free liss, I am, an' dese chillun is too. Now, I just want to know if they can come in on the free liss or no. I ask you once.' We got mad and said we would't allow no nigger 3, without they went up to the gallery. Then she says,' I ask you twice.' One of the riders cursed her, and one of the horses threw an oyster shell at her head, the says, £I ask you three times,' but she didn't wait for an answer. She just run at the bagging that was propped up. She knocked over the box and scattered the pins. She stuck her|old woolly head through the papered hoop that was just ready for the dog, and in less then three minutes she had broke up everything and ruined our dressing room and al our properties. We pitched into her, of course, and her little barkey. The horses and riders and the clown, and the dog barked and run around, and some of the people helped us; but she made a bully fight, though we tore off a heap of her clothes, and she fell back .fighting and abusing us, and screaming for the police and the soldiers, and her children screamed too. We didn't mean to hurt them bad, you know, but we were real mad, I tell you that. So she got back on the gallery, and the children got there too, and when we saw her coming out with a bucket of slop, we fell back into the alley, for we didn't want our clothes ruined. So we all came away; but if the boys catch her or any of her brats around we'll give 'em fits for breaking up our circus." " Uan't you have it some Jwhere else?" :" "We haven't got anythingjto havelit with, without it's us and the dog. But we'll put it up again; but there shan't no niggers come in, not for a hundred pins. They would ruin any show." "But I saw you playing marbles with a darkey the other day." " Why of course, we couldif t make up the game without him-; besides, he had a pocket full of alleys that we wanted to win of him. But a circus is very different."— New Orleans Republican. .-- ':•:: '■::'-: ':■"■:■[ '