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610  said, "Oh, sit down!" as if they wondered what such a person could have to say which would not be a waste of the meeting's time, but she would not sit down. Standing there until the noise had hushed, she began:

"I wants ter tank Gawd I'se come here ter day an' heard what dat sister had ter say. I don' know what made me come. I'se nebber been here before, but I'se so glad I come ter-day! I'se been de mother ob sixteen chillen. I hain't nebber had a home nor a mule nor eben a dress dat wa'n't morgiged. My chillen's gone an' lef me as soon as dey's growed up, an' now my ole man is gone too. I tought dere wasn't nuffin lef for me ter do but jes' die, but now I'se goin' home an' get some lan' an' do for myself an' my littles' chillens what nobody has ebber done for me. I kin do it, an' I tank Gawd I'se been here ter git de word."

It seems to me as if this was missionary work of the best kind, and it is such work as this that Tuskegee is doing constantly.



X. —In my paper in these pages, in 1894, I remarked, "If there is any such thing as a salutary liquor law, not derived from excise or police jurisdiction, it would be, perhaps, a statute insuring the purity of liquor; reviving that old English functionary, the 'ale-taster,' with his care over all drinkables exposed for sale." And surely this would be a legitimate and a constitutional law, as providing for the public safety (which is, after all is said, the origin and summit of all law). To kill a rattlesnake the rattlesnake must first be recognized as alive, and the old cry of the Podsnap that nothing improper exists is fast disappearing. It seems to me that at present, and in view of the fact that Mr. Reed's plan would involve a social and economical plant which could only be accumulated by long and deliberate legislative action, and admitting that the drink evil not only calls for legislative action but has received it for sixty-two years, and so accustomed our communities to expect it; admitting also Mr. Bellamy's and Mr. Reed's basic proposition that there is no reason why any human being should starve, and that it is not public policy that any creature of the State (even if a criminal confined for crime in a State penitentiary) should starve—admitting all these, it seems as if this plan really might be the best and most immediately practicable plan yet. Every State, without