FROM OUR BROOKLYN CORRESPONDENT.

MY DEAR DOUGLASS:—Whether the dense fog that enveloped Gotham on Thursday morning was the scattered remnants of the same that overshadowed the ocean during the morning the Arctic met her fate, or a twin sister come to land, to remind us of that event I know not; but a denser one, I venture to affirm, is not within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Men and women went about like spectres and unbidden spirits, peering into each other's faces, and jostling each other like the cast-out ones, grouping in that lake which is shut out from the Great Presence.

The loss of the Arctic still continues to be the topic of thought and conversation here. Sermons, long and loud, interlarded with praise or blame, are preached; clashing or concilliatory Editorial leaders, spun out daily to a grief-stricken auditory, is yet the manner of Gotham;—indeed, not to say something soothing or severe upon the subject, would be to infer that you were an inhabitant of some other planet than this. But if a portion of this array of talent was expended in the right direction—upon the actual cause instead of the mere effect—I am of opinion we might have some slight hopes of a change for the better. This accident, and all similar ones, have their origin in what may be denominated "the spirit of American character," which is really a lack of true character—or, better a reckless disregard for any semblance of character. It is useless to assert that this excrescence (I know not what else to term it) protrudes only from among the lower order; it pervades the rich as well; it clings to all departments of American Society. It is called by various names—such as progress, improvement, superiority; and lastly, which is more generic, the spirit of the age, and its tendencies are called manifest destiny, glorious destiny, &c, which means final destruction. It must be admitted, that it is this spirit that builds our railroads; but it sends the cars head-long over frightful precipices, and through deep ravines, freighted with mangled corpses. It mudles swift running steamers, and puts within them powerful engines; but it blows them up, sending their shattered fragments to the shores of our beautiful rivers, while their human freight make their gravely bottoms its last resting place. It builds fine modeled ships; but it sinks them to the great deep. It builds tall houses, tall castles; but to fall and crush their workmen. It rears Babel-like churches, which they say are dedicated to God; but it slams the door in the faces of the poor and needy, or pens them up in dark corners, and behind screens—while it makes the pulpit discourse on matters of trade and commerce—of more territory—of materialism in general—of only things here —of nothing hereafter. It invents fine steel bladed knives and revolvers; but it blows out men and womens' brains, and cuts their hearts out without compunction, fear or remorse. In fine, the spirit regards neither life nor limb, right nor justice. The lesson it teaches, is, an entire disregard of all
whatever, save self-gratification, unbridled looseness to the bases of passions, and to listen
to nothing, save the coarse, vulgar applause
of the great multitude—the commen herd.

Its only watchword is, Go ahead! It is this self same spirit that caused a powerful steamer like the once proud Arctic to walk the water like a thing of life, amid the opacity of the fog, regardless of smaller and (as all mostly thought) weaker vessels; and the same that caused the stronger men to take to the life boats and pull for the shore, regardless of the cry of the poor feeble women and helpless children. The same spirit that caused this whole catastrophe is the same that causes the community sitting on damask cushions, in gilded houses, to disregard the cry of the needy around them—the same that deafens the ear and mocks at the mother's wail as the lash quivers in her naked flesh, saying, poo! what have we to do with that? What business of ours is it? Why trouble ye us? Yes; the same spirit that causes a man to sell his brother, his son, or his daughter—the woman her sister—is the same that caused the helpless sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters, the wives and mothers to be abandoned to the surge—the same that caused that wail, so piercing that the density of the fog must have rolled up from before it as a scroll—a wail that must have rent the very heavens. Yes this reckless, selfish spirit—spirit of our age—spirit of America, that has no ear for humanity, had none for that cry—(how could it? it has never been so educated)—and so these helpless victims were left to sink, sink to the deep blue sea's bottom, to be food for fishes!

Americans, (the more thoughtful among you I mean,) as in your more sober reflections, you count over the long catalogue of wrongs and accidents, the offspring of this fell spirit—should your thoughts chance to stray upon this dreadful catastrophe, and, lingering there, you see in your imagining the wife, mother, daughter, with closed eyes and drooping lashes, with head and hair erect, each struggling to seek the surface and be free, with arms extended and body settling downward to its dark bed—then think of the thousands of wives, mothers, and daughters in your land, oppressed, abused, and worse than murdered by that same spirit which you regard so lightly, unless brought directly home to you.—Your ministers, editors, and philosophical speculators, may seek in vain for remedies, unless they ascertain the real disease and be willing hereafter to apply the proper remedy, which is to train the American mind to fully regard the positive command, "Do unto others as ye would others should do unto you." If you would avoid these dreadful calamities and God's awful judgments, begin and cut out at the very roots ere the seeds fall back again into the soil, and eventually grow so strong and so poisonous that they prove the nation's death at last, and its existence be but remembered in after time but as a hiss and a by word.

Yours Truly,

ETHIOPWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. .

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, Oct. 28th, 1854.