the criminal code of the nursery has banished thither for
collecting fuel on the Sabbath-day."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE MISCEGENATION HOAX.--A GREAT LITERARY SELL.--POLITICAL
HUMBUGGING.--TRICKS OF THE WIRE-PULLERS.--MACHINERY EMPLOYED TO RENDER
THE PAMPHLET NOTORIOUS.--WHO WERE SOLD AND HOW IT WAS DONE.

Some persons say that "all is fair in politics." Without agreeing with
this doctrine, I nevertheless feel that the history of Ancient and
Modern Humbugs would not be complete without a record of the last and
one of the most successful of known literary hoaxes. This is the
pamphlet entitled "Miscegenation," which advocates the blending of the
white and black races upon this continent, as a result not only
inevitable from the freeing of the negro, but desirable as a means of
creating a more perfect race of men than any now existing. This pamphlet
is a clever political quiz; and was written by three young gentlemen of
the "World" newspaper, namely. D. G. Croly, George Wakeman, and E. C.
Howell.

The design of "Miscegenation" was exceedingly ambitious, and the
machinery employed was probably among the most ingenious and audacious
ever put into operation to procure the indorsement of absurd theories,
and give the subject the widest notoriety. The object was to so make use
of the prevailing ideas of the extremists of the Anti-Slavery party, as
to induce them to accept doctrines which would be obnoxious to the
great mass of the community, and which would, of course, be used in the
political canvass which was to ensue. It was equally important that the
"Democrats" should be made to believe that the pamphlet in question
emanated from a "Republican" source. The idea was suggested by a
discourse delivered by Mr. Theodore Tilton, at the Cooper Institute,
before the American Anti-Slavery Society, in May 1863, on the negro, in
which that distinguished orator argued, that in some future time the
blood of the negro would form one of the mingled bloods of the great
regenerated American nation. The scheme once conceived, it began
immediately to be put into execution. The first stumbling-block was the
name "amalgamation," by which this fraternizing of the races had been
always known. It was evident that a book advocating amalgamation would
fall still-born, and hence some new and novel word had to be discovered,
with the same meaning, but not so objectionable. Such a word was coined
by the combination of the Latin _miscere_, to