Dutch flag, and like them his passage was paid in New Orleans by his sale as a redemptioner. A printer bought his services for two years and a half. His story is the good old one of courage, self-imposed privations, and rapid development of talents. From printing he rose to journalism, and from journalism passed to the bar. By 1836, at thirty-three years of age, he stood in the front rank of that brilliant group where Grymes was still at his best. Before he was forty he had been made attorney-general of the State. Punctuality, application, energy, temperance, probity, bounty, were the strong features of his character. It was a common thing for him to give his best services free in the cause of the weak against the strong. As an adversary he was decorous and amiable, but thunderous, heavy-handed, derisive if need be, and inexorable. A time came for these weapons to be drawn in defense of Salome Müller. MILLER versus BELMONTI. IN 1843 Frank and Eva Schuber had moved to a house on the corner of Jackson and Annunciation streets.1 They had brought up sons, two at least, who were now old enough to be their father's mainstay in his enlarged business of "farming" (leasing and subletting) the Poydras market. The father and mother and their kindred and companions in long past misfortunes and sorrows had grown to wealth and standing among the German-Americans of New Orleans and Lafayette. The little girl cousin of Salome Müller, who as a child of the same age had been her playmate on shipboard at the Helder and in crossing the Atlantic, and who looked so much like Salome, was a woman of thirty, the wife of Karl Rouff. One summer day she was on some account down near the lower limits of New Orleans on or near the river front, where the population was almost wholly a lower class of Spanish people. Passing an open door her eye was suddenly arrested by a woman of about her own age engaged in some humble service within with her face towards the door. Madame Karl paused in astonishment. The place was a small drinking-house, a mere cabaret; but the woman! It was as if her aunt Dorothea, who had died on the ship twenty-five years before, stood face to face with her alive and well. There were her black hair and eyes, her olive skin, and the old, familiar expression of countenance that belonged so distinctly to all the Hillsler family. Madame Karl went in. "My name," the woman replied to her question, "is Mary." And to another question, "No; I am a yellow girl. I belong to Mr. Louis Belmonti, who keeps this 'coffee-house.' 1 Long since burned down. VOL. XXXVIII.— 9. He has owned me for four or five years. Before that? Before that, I belonged to Mr. John Fitz Miller, who has the saw-mill down here by the convent. I always belonged to him." Her accent was the one common to English-speaking slaves. But Madame Karl was not satisfied. "You are not rightly a slave. Your name is Müller. You are of pure German blood. I knew your mother. I know you. We came to this country together on the same ship, twenty-five years ago." "No," said the other; "you must be mistaking me for some one else that I look like." But Madame Karl: "Come with me. Come up into Lafayette and see if I do not show you to others who will know you the moment they look at you." The woman enjoyed much liberty in her place and was able to accept this invitation. Madame Karl took her to the home of Frank and Eva Schuber. Their front door steps were on the street. As Madame Karl came up to them Eva stood in the open door much occupied with her approach, for she had not seen her for two years. Another woman, a stranger, was with Madame Karl. As they reached the threshold and the two old-time friends exchanged greetings, Eva said: "Why, it is two years since I last saw you. Is that a German woman?—I know her!" "Well," said Madame Karl, "if you know her, who is she?" "My God!" cried Eva-"the long-lost Salome Müller!" "I needed nothing more to convince me," she afterwards testified in court. "I could recognize her among a hundred thousand persons." Frank Schuber came in, having heard nothing. He glanced at the stranger, and turning to his wife asked: "Is not that one of the girls who was lost?" "It is," replied Eva; "it is. It is Salome Müller!" On that same day, as it seems, for the news had not reached them, Madame Fleikener and her daughter - they had all become madams in creole America—had occasion to go to see her kinswoman, Eva Schuber. She saw the stranger and instantly recognized her, "because of her resemblance to her mother." They were all overjoyed. Though here was a woman who for twenty-five years had been dragged in the mire of African slavery and was the mother of quadroon children and ignorant of her own identity, they welcomed her back to their embrace, not fearing but hoping she was their long-lost Salome. But another confirmation was possible, far oath to her identity, and pledge their fortunes to her protection as their kinswoman. Day after day the argument continued. At length the Sabbath broke its continuity, but on Monday it was resumed, and on Tuesday Francis Upton rose to make the closing argument for the plaintiff. His daughter, Miss Upton, now of Washington, once did me the honor to lend me a miniature of him made about the time of Salome's suit for freedom. It is a pleasing evidence of his modesty in the domestic circle - where masculine modesty is so rare that his daughter had never heard him tell the story of this case, in which, it is said, he put the first strong luster on his fame. In the picture he is a very David-"ruddy and of a fair countenance"; a countenance at once gentle and valiant, vigorous and pure. Lifting this face upon the wrinkled chief-justice and associate judges, he began to set forth the points of law, in an argument which, we are told, "was regarded by those who heard it as one of the happiest forensic efforts ever made before the court." He set his reliance mainly upon two points: one, that, it being obvious and admitted that plaintiff was not entirely of African race, the presumption of law was in favor of liberty and with the plaintiff, and therefore that the whole burden of proof was upon the defendants, Belmonti and Miller; and the other point, that the presumption of freedom in such a case could be rebutted only by proof that she was descended from a slave mother. These points the young attorney had to maintain as best he could without precedents fortifying them beyond attack; but " Adele versus Beauregard" he insisted firmly established the first point and implied the court's assent to the second, while as legal doctrines "Wheeler on Slavery" upheld them both. When he was done Salome's fate was in the hands of her judges. Almost a month goes by before their judgment is rendered. But at length, on the 21st of June, the gathering with which our imagination has become familiar appears for the last time. The chief-justice is to read the decision from which there can be no appeal. As the judges take their places one seat is left void; it is by reason of sickness. Order is called, silence falls, and all eyes are on the chief-justice. He reads. To one holding the court's official copy of judgment in hand, as I do at this moment, following down the lines as the justice's eyes once followed them, passing from paragraph to paragraph, and turning the leaves as his hand that day turned them, the scene lifts itself before the mind's eye despite every effort to hold it to the cold letter of the timestained files of the court. In a single clear, wellcompacted paragraph the court states Salome's claim and Belmonti's denial; in another, the warrantor Miller's denial and defense; and in two lines more, the decision of the lower court. And now mark the strange utterance that follows-esteemed right enough then and there, but already in our day repudiated by law and the best conscience of our nation, and destined yet to be abhorred by every right mind: "The first inquiry," so reads the chiefjustice-"the first inquiry that engages our attention is, What is the color of the plaintiff?" But this is far from bringing dismay to Salome and her friends. For hear what follows: "Persons of color "-meaning of mixed blood, not pure negro "are presumed to be free. . . . The burden of proof is upon him who claims the colored person as a slave. . . . In the highest courts of the State of Virginia. . . a person of the complexion of the plaintiff, without evidence of descent from a slave mother, would be released even on habeas corpus. . . . Not only is there no evidence of her [plaintiff] being descended from a slave mother, or even a mother of the African race, but no witness has ventured a positive opinion that she is of that race." Glad words for Salome and her kindred. The reading goes on: "The presumption is clearly in favor of the plaintiff." But suspense returns, for-"It is next proper," the reading still goes on, "to inquire how far that presumption has been weakened or justified or repelled by the testimony of numerous witnesses in the record. . . . If a number of witnesses had sworn"-here the justice turns the fourth page; now he is in the middle of it, yet all goes well; he is making a comparison of testimony for and against, unfavorable to that which is against. And now—“But the proof does not stop at mere family resemblance." He is coming to the matter of the birth-marks. He calls them "evidence which is not impeached." He turns the page again, and begins at the top to meet the argument of Grymes from the old Spanish Partidas. But as his utterance follows his eye down the page he sets that argument aside as not good to establish such a title as that by which Miller received the plaintiff. He exonerates Miller, but accuses the absent Williams of imposture and fraud. One may well fear the verdict after that. But now he turns a page which every one can see is the last : It has been said that the German witnesses are imaginative and enthusiastic, and their confidence is at least of a quiet sort, evidently the result of ought to be distrusted. That kind of enthusiasm profound conviction and certainly free from any taint of worldly interest, and is by no means incompatible with the most perfect conscientiousness. If they are mistaken as to the identity of the plaintiff; if there be in truth two persons about the same age bearing a strong resemblance to the family of Miller [Müller] and having the same identical marks from their birth, and the plaintiff is not the others in 1818, it is certainly one of the most extraordinary things in history. If she be not, then nobody has told who she is. After the most mature consideration of the case, we are of opinion the plaintiff is free, and it is our duty to declare her so. real lost child who arrived here with hundreds of It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that the judgment of the District Court be reversed; and ours is that the plaintiff be released from the bonds of slavery, that the defendants pay the costs of the appeal, and that the case be remanded for further proceedings as between the defendant and his warrantor. So ends the record of the court. "The question of damage," says the Law Reporter, "is the subject-matter of another suit now pending against Jno. F. Miller and Mrs. Canby." But I have it verbally from Salome's relatives that the claim was lightly and early dismissed. Salome being free, her sons were, by law, free also. But they came, and could come, only into a negro's freedom, went to Tennessee and Kentucky, were heard of once or twice as stable-boys to famous horses, and disappeared. A Mississippi River pilot, John Given by name, met Salome among her relatives, and courted and married her. As might readily be supposed, this alliance was only another misfortune to Salome, and the pair separated. Salome went to California. Her cousin, Henry Schuber, tells me he saw her in 1855 in Sacramento City, living at last a respected and comfortable life. G. W. Cable. A SURIAT SHRINE. A RIDE THROUGH THE TRANS-BAIKAL. BOUT nine o'clock Tuesday evening we returned from the visit to the Buddhist lamasery described in THE CENTURY MAGAZINE for March, and at eleven o'clock on the same night we ordered post horses at Selenginsk and set out for the Russo-Mongolian frontier town of Kiakhta (Kee-akh'-ta), distant about sixty miles. We ought to have arrived there early on the following morning; but in Siberia, and particularly in the Trans-Baikal (Trans-By-kal'), the traveler is always detained more or less by petty unforeseen accidents and misadventures. We were stopped at midnight about six versts from Selenginsk by an unbridged river. Communication between the two shores was supposed to be maintained by means of a "karbass," or rude ferryboat; but as this boat happened to be on the other side of the stream, it was of no use to us unless we could awaken the ferryman by calling to him. Singly and in chorus we shouted "Kar-ba-a-a-ss!" at short intervals for an hour, without getting any response except a faint mocking echo from the opposite cliffs. Cold, sleepy, and discouraged, we were about to give it up for the night and return to Selenginsk, when we saw the dark outlines of a low, raft-like boat moving slowly up-stream in the shadow of the cliffs on the other side. It was the long-lookedfor karbass. In half an hour we were again under way on the southern side of the river, and at three o'clock in the morning we reached the post station of Povorotnaya (Po-vo-róte-na VOL. XXXVIII.-10. ya). Here, of course, there were no horses. The station house was already full of travelers asleep on the floor, and there was nothing for us to do except to lie down in an unoccupied corner near the oven, between two Chinese and a pile of medicinal deer-horns, and to get through the remainder of the night as best we could. All day Wednesday we rode southward through a rather dreary and desolate region of sandy pine barrens or wide stretches of short dead grass, broken here and there by low hills covered with birches, larches, and evergreens. Now and then we met a train of small one-horse wagons loaded with tea that had come overland across Mongolia from Pekin, or two or three mounted Buriats (Booryáts) in dishpan-shaped hats and long brown kaftans (kaf-táns), upon the breasts of which had been sewn zigzags of red cloth that suggested a rude Mongolian imitation of the Puritan "scarlet letter." As a rule, however, the road seemed to be little traveled and scantily settled, and in a ride of nearly fifty miles we saw nothing of interest except here and there on the summits of hills small sacred piles of stones which Mr. Frost called "Buriat shrines." All over Siberia it is the custom of the natives when they cross the top of a high hill or mountain to make a propitiatory offering to the spirits of storm and tempest. In the extreme north-eastern part of Siberia these offerings consist generally of tobacco, and are thrown out on the ground in front of some prominent and noticeable rock; but in the Trans-Baikal the Buriats and Mongols are accustomed to pile a heap of stones beside the more conclusive than mere recognition of the countenance. Eva knew this. For weeks together she had bathed and dressed the little Salome every day. She and her mother and all Henry Müller's family had known, and had made it their common saying, that it might be difficult to identify the lost Dorothea were she found; but if ever Salome were found they could prove she was Salome beyond the shadow of a doubt. It was the remembrance of this that moved Eva Schuber to say to the woman : "Come with me into this other room." They went, leaving Madame Karl, Madame Fleikener, her daughter, and Frank Schuber behind. And when they returned the slave was convinced, with them all, that she was the younger daughter of Daniel and Dorothea Müller. We shall presently see what fixed this conviction. The next step was to claim her freedom. She appears to have gone back to Belmonti, but within a very few days, if not immediately, Madame Schuber and a certain Mrs. White who does not become prominent — followed down to the cabaret. Mrs. White went out somewhere on the premises, found Salome at work, and remained with her, while Madame Schuber confronted Belmonti, and, revealing Salome's identity and its proofs, demanded her instant release. Belmonti refused to let her go. But while doing so he admitted his belief that she might be of pure white blood and of right entitled to freedom. He confessed having gone back to John F. Miller 1 soon after buying her and proposing to set her free; but Miller, he said, had replied that in such a case the law required her to leave the country. Thereupon Belmonti had demanded that the sale be rescinded, saying: "I have paid you my money for her." "But," said Miller, "I did not sell her to you as a slave. She is as white as you or I, and neither of us can hold her if she choose to go away." Such at least was Belmonti's confession, yet he was as far from consenting to let his captive go after this confession was made as he had been before. He seems actually to have kept her for a while; but at length she went boldly to Schuber's house, became one of his household, and with his advice and aid asserted her intention to establish her freedom by an appeal to law. Belmonti replied with threats of public imprisonment, the chain-gang, and the auctioneer's block. herself a prisoner, by the only choice the laws allowed her, in the famous calaboose. Says her petition: "Your petitioner has good reason to believe that the said Belmonti intends to remove her out of the jurisdiction of the court during the pendency of the suit"; wherefore not he but she went to jail. Here she remained for six days and was then allowed to go at large, but only upon giving bond and security to Belmonti, and in a much larger sum than she had ever been sold for. The original writ of sequestration lies before me as I write, indorsed as follows: mark ing in words of strange and solemn irony: "In the year hundred and forty-four and in the sixty-eighth of our Lord one thousand eight year of the Independence of the United States." We need not follow the history at the slow tion John F. Miller was called in warranty; gait of court proceedings. At Belmonti's petiti's stead. There were "prayers" and rules, that is, made the responsible party in Belmonwrits and answers, as the cause slowly gathered shape for final contest. Here are papers of and April 1, 2, 8, and 27. On the 7th of May date February 24 and 29-it was leap yearFrank Schuber asked leave, and on the 14th in his place in order that he himself might was allowed, to substitute another bondsman qualify as a witness; and on the 23d of May the case came to trial. THE TRIAL. IT had already become famous. Early in April the press of the city, though in those days unused to giving local affairs more than the feeblest attention, had spoken of this suit as destined, if well founded, to develop a case of "unparalleled hardship, cruelty, and oppression." The German people especially were aroused and incensed. A certain newspaper spoke of the matter as the case "that had for several days created so much excitement throughout the city." The public sympathy was with Salome. But by how slender a tenure was it held! It rested not on the "hardship, cruelty, and oppression" she had suffered for twenty years, but only on the fact, which she might yet fail to prove, that she had suffered these things without having that tincture of African race which, be it ever so faint, would entirely justify, alike in the law and in the popular mind, treatment otherwise counted hard, cruel, oppressive, and worthy of the public indignation. And now to prove the fact. In a newspaper of that date appears the following: This cause came on to-day for trial before the court, Roselius and Upton for plaintiff, Canon for defendant, Grymes and Micon for warrantor; when after hearing evidence the same is continued until to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock. Salome's battle had begun. Besides the counsel already named, there were on the slave's side a second Upton and a Bonford, and on the master's side a Sigur, a Caperton, and a Lockett. The redemptioners had made the cause their own and prepared to sustain it with a common purse. Neither party had asked for a trial by jury; the decision was to come from the bench. The soldier, in the tableaux of Judge Buchanan's life, had not dissolved perfectly into the justice, and old lawyers of New Orleans remember him rather for unimpeachable integrity than for fine discrimination, a man of almost austere dignity, somewhat quick in temper. Before him now gathered the numerous counsel, most of whose portraits have long since been veiled and need not now be uncovered. At the head of one group stood Roselius, at the head of the other, Grymes. And for this there were good reasons. Roselius, who had just ceased to be the State's attorney-general, was already looked upon as one of the readiest of all champions of the unfortunate. He was in his early prime, the first full spread of his powers, but he had not forgotten the little Dutch brig Jupiter, or the days when he was himself a redemptioner. Grymes, on the other side, had had to doas we have seen-with these same redemptioners before. The uncle and the father of this same Sally Miller, so called, had been chief witnesses in the suit for their liberty and hers, which he had - blamelessly, we need not doubt-lost some twenty-five years before. Directly in consequence of that loss Salome had gone into slavery and disappeared. And now. the loser of that suit was here to maintain that slavery over a woman who, even if she should turn out not to be the lost child, was enough like to be mistaken for her. True, causes must have attorneys, and such things may happen to any lawyer; but here was a cause which in our lights, to-day at least, had on the defendant's side no moral right to come into court. One other person, and only one, need we mention. Many a New York City lawyer will recall in his reminiscences of thirty years ago a small, handsome, gold-spectacled man with brown hair and eyes, noted for scholarship and literary culture; a brilliant pleader at the bar, and author of two books that became authorities, one on trade-marks, the other on prize law. Even some who do not recollect him by this description may recall how the gifted Frank Upton-for it is of him I write was one day in 1863 or 1864 struck down by apoplexy while pleading in the well-known Peterhoff case. Or they may remember subsequently his constant, pathetic effort to maintain his old courtly mien against his resultant paralysis. This was the young man of about thirty, of uncommon masculine beauty and refinement, who sat beside Christian Roselius as an associate in the cause of Sally Miller versus Louis Belmonti. THE EVIDENCE. WE need not linger over the details of the trial. The witnesses for the prosecution were called. First came a creole woman, so old that she did not know her own age, but was a grown-up girl in the days of the Spanish governor-general Galvez, sixty-five years before. She recognized in the plaintiff the same person whom she had known as a child in John F. Miller's domestic service with the mien, eyes, and color of a white person and with a German accent. Next came Madame Hemin, who had not known the Müllers till she met them on the Russian ship and had not seen Salome since parting from them at Amsterdam, yet who instantly identified her "when she herself came into the court-room just now." "Witness says," continues the record," she perceived the family likeness in plaintiff's face when she came in the door." The next day came Eva and told her story; |