Too White for Him.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 87

Too White for Him.

The negro blood, v. herever it is. supplies an clement of light-heartedness which will not be wholly crushed. In illustration this story is told of a very light mulatto ot \ Tennessee : — A number of years ago it came to him suddenly one day that ho was white enough to pa-s anywhere fcr white. avx\ he acted in-st-anrly on the inspiration. Ho went to Memphis and bought a first class ticket on a Mississippi River boat to Cincinnati. No one suspected that he was coloured. He £at at the table with white people, 'and even occupied a state room with a white man. At first he said he could hardly restrain his exultation, but after a time, although ho a=sociated with white men, he began to be lonesome. "It gr-ew colder and colder," he said. In the evening he sat on the upper deck, •and a^ he lociked over the railings he coukl see, down below, the negro pa« c engers and deck hands talking and laughing. After a time, whan it: grew claTk. they began to ' sing the inimitable negro songs. ''That finished me," he said. '"I got up and went downstairs and took my place a.moner them. I've been a negro ever since."