Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question
About this book
"[...]seemingly above a year back, may perhaps be welcome to here and there a speculative reader. It comes to us,—no speaker named, no time or place assigned, no commentary of any sort given,—in the handwriting of the so-called ‘Doctor,’ properly ‘Absconded Reporter,’ Dr. Phelim M‘Quirk, whose singular powers of reporting, and also whose debts, extravagances, and sorrowful insidious finance-operations, now winded up by a sudden disappearance, to the grief of many poor tradespeople, are making too much noise in the police-offices at present! Of M‘Quirk’s composition we by no means suppose it to be; but from M‘Quirk, as the last traceable source, it comes to us;—offered, in fact, by his respectable unfortunate landlady, desirous to make up part of her losses in this way.To absconded reporters who bilk their lodgings, we have of course no account to but if the Speaker be of any eminence or substantiality, and feel himself aggrieved by the transaction, let him understand that such, and such only, is our connexion with him or his affairs. As the Colonial and Negro Question is still alive, and likely to grow livelier for some time, we have accepted the Article, at a cheap market-rate; and give it publicity, without in the least committing ourselves to the strange doctrines and[...]".