629 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 3 minutes [350 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

ALEXANDER WHISTELO. 597

In etiquette—but not in reality. "Montague's men are always thrust from the wall, and their women to the wall." Can we believe that the white watch made the black watch turn out, merely for the sake of a warm hammock? If that be so, I can only say, "delicate pleasures to susceptible minds!"

But that is not the argument. The woman herself says that there were no young ones that time, because they fought all the time. If they fought, what more is wanted? One of the counsel asked whether many races of animals were not propagated in strife, and he instanced cats; but he might have taken a still nobler instance, that of the Sabine women, who scuffled with the Roman men, yet bore them children. All history, sacred and profane, is full of children begotten in violence. There are countries where a scratched nose is a sign of victory rather than defeat; and where a woman who surrenders her favors without resistance, is like a general who surrenders a strong place without a shot. Say then that one scuffled like Boreas, the other like Zephyr—still it comes to the same thing; for Zephyr, mild as he was, got Flora with child, and Boreas with his Orythia could do no more, except that he got twins with wings on them. The terms in which Ovid makes Flora give her evidence, are so applicable to the case of our Lucy, when she speaks of her black lover, that I am tempted, as well for that, as to show I have not forgotten my Latin, to repeat them:

"Vor erat, Zephyrus me conspecit, abibam
Insequitur, fugio, fortior ille fuit."

What is there then but the love of the marvelous that should induce us to depart from the ordinary laws of nature to come at the conclusion, that this child belongs to a black, rather than to a white man? There was no difference but in the manner; and in such matters, every man will have his way.

Dick can neatly dance a jig;
But Tom is best at Boreas.