20 AUGUST 1965, Page 7

Our Yankee Correspondent

Riffling through back volumes in an idle Moment, I came upon a letter on the racial situation from .our American correspondent in New York, dated August I I, 1865--four months before Congress under President Johnson passed the Thirteenth Amendment which finally abolished slavery in the Union. The theme of the letter is racial hatred and the subject, then as ri°w, is an outburst of mob violence sparked off by the heat, and widely reported in the national press, which took place in 'a quiet little New tngiand village named Greenwich, filled with as 8()(1111, sober and intelligent a people as the world e,ver saw gathered together in one community.' Itis an unpleasant document, putgished 'with regret' by a previous editor who could not endorse its arguments. The mob was white, one of its members was killed by a 'fowling-piece loaded

with slugs,' and the jury acquitted the woman who had fired in self-defence. There was a rider from one Philander Button, advising the unfor- tunate negro as follows:

You are in imminent danger in Greenwich, notwithstanding all the care and protection which the substantial men of the town, such as are on this jury, can afford, and will continue to afford to the best of our ability, to every man in the enjoyment of his liberty and property.... If I were you, I would go away from here.