Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/909

Rh rent beside. And it must be remembered that none of these old people own a foot of ground in the city, or have a home they can call their own. A few of these only live with children, some of whom are also very old. Fanny Miner, one hundred and thirteen, lives with a daughter seventy-two. William Dennis, ninety-nine, lives with a daughter seventy-four. Anna Sanxter, one hundred and one, with a consumptive son of sixty, and has slept on an old table through the winter watching, as she says, two days and a night at one time, with no food at all. She was one of the slaves of Washington. Anna Ferguson, another of his slaves, emancipated when young, lives in a wretched garret, and has no one to give her a cup of water. She sent a child to me to-day, who said she went in to borrow some fire of "old auntie," and found her very nick, groaning with dreadful pain, with the message that she was perishing for something to eat; could I send her an Irish potato? She added in her message, "Tell her to come and see me, Ill not be here long."

I have just now returned from a visit on "the Island," where I have seen twenty-seven of these helpless persons, a few cases of which (could you see them) would leave no doubt in your mind in reference to the necessity of a change from the present state of things. I saw enough in this visit to fill a book, and could tongue or pen describe it— +o convince the mind of a savage—of terrible inhumanity and lack of all charity. The morning was sunny and clear, and old Aunt Clara and Uncle John sat on broken chairs, under the rude perch of a miserable shanty. He, tall and athletic, bis long white beard and snow-white head, impressive as the type of venerable age, was putting Aunt Clara's foot into a soft shoe as carefully as though it was the last time it could be dressed. She 24, neat and velvet-faced, was stone blind, and so paralyzed that the slightest touch on the arm or hand made her spring and cry like a child. The shock put out both her eyes, and made her as helpless as an infant in all particulars.

For one year she has been unable to feed herself, undress, or to do anything to relieve the monotony of utter helplessness. He had brought her out in the sun, there was no window in their room, and had spread a cloth on her lap, us she said, hoping somebody would come along who would comb her hair. Uncle John was 14, he says,when Washington died. Not a child or a friend to go to them, there they stay. They said they had nothing to eat last night, and were often two days without a pint of meal, and nothing like food in the house, for the old man said, "When mamma has her 'poor turns,' I never leaves her, and nobody ever feeds her but me, or dresses or undresses her." I shall not forget how the tears dropped from her face, as she told the story of her life. A woman once, but nobody now, comfort all gone, and hungry and cold the rest of my days.'" Her mind 'was unimpaired, and her faith unwavering.

Henry and Milly Lang were two squares away; persons between sixty and seventy, living in a shanty used in time of the war as a stable. For five years they have lived there, paying, in all but the last two months, four dollars a month rent. Milly is also stone blind, and sick and helpless. They were in great distress, had no food in the house, for Henry has hip disease, and for eleven weeks has not walked a step. On every side I could look through the open boards, and when the last storms came, they said the rain came down on the whole floor, covering it, so they sat. on the pallet all day. The landlord has ordered them to leave the house in five days, to put in a cow instead! Friendless, homeless, penniless!!! and yet must eat or die. Three of those I saw were over one hundred—one had five children, when Washington died, lived in his county. Sixteen were over seventy. Not one of them had a child in this city. Five were over 80; and all of these whom I saw were as dependent as infants.

Johnny Scraper sat in rags, paralyzed from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, alone in a six-by-ten-foot room, unable to walk a step, yet is left entirely alone, sometimes for three days. If he has anything brought in to eat, he thanks God; if not, he must do without it, Tuesday and Saturday night he says a fellow-servant, living in a distant part of the city, came to see him, and sometimes brought a piece of fish or meat; this is all the chance he has for anything, except a little meal or dry bread. Every one of these old people complained that they were dying for some meat—were so weak. Aunt Dinah said that she went out on the street last week and begged of the school children, who gave her seven cents, and she went into a grocery to buy a piece of meat, and re-