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 add, by way of proviso, "If you find them to be possessed of qualities which would promote our national welfare you may return them to us at such a time as our prejudice shall have abated toward them, but for the present we pray you take them from our midst."

After a lapse of several years, being thrown on her own responsibility for maintenance, she came to Indianapolis about the year 1885, where she soon attracted the notice of the literati of the city and was accorded that consideration due her intellectual gifts. Being a lady of fine voice and attractive personality, through inclination coupled with the suggestions of friends, she took a series of instructions in the art of elocution under Madams Prunk and Lucia Julian Martin respectively. During a professional tour extending through six weeks her reception was a flattering one, and would have turned a less balanced head. In September, 1891, her old love for journalistic work asserting itself, she was offered and accepted a position on one of the race's great journals. The Freeman, as correspondent editor, feature writer, etc. Her "friendly reminders" which appeared weekly in that splendid publication dedicated to the women of the Afro-American race, have been read wherever the negro is found and will be accorded a positive and lasting place among the refined literary creations of her day. As a writer Mrs. Thomas' strength lies in her acute and very rare power of discrimination and analysis. Possessing a keen sense, of what might be termed intellectual intuition of the eternal fitness of things, she is quick to detect the grain and discard the chaff.

Writing with her is not indulged in for the reason urged by the mere literary dilettante, viz., pastime or