Oseba answered, "I love that great and wonderful country so deeply, and I so much admire its splendid audacity, that I would gladly speak kindly, even of its faults; but, my children, it is not all 'rosewater and glycerine' in Yankeedom. "In wealth, in enterprise, in education, in intelligence, and in opportunities for further progress, America may justly claim to be the foremost nation on the globe, and she has 'rights' no other would care to dispute. But,-- 'The people, Oh! the people, Those much lower than the steeple.' It is they, of whom we may profitably inquire. A nation may be rich, though the people may be poor; a nation may be strong, while the people are weak; a nation may be feared because the people can be relied upon to obey designing masters, but the true greatness of a nation must ever depend upon the quality of the individuals composing the nation. "In America, my children, they sing many choruses. Listening across the sea, the groans of despair are heard, mingled with the inspiring chants of robed priests, and, the public heart being touched with pity, the bandmaster mounts his pedestal, looks serenely benevolent, and, raising his baton with gracefully curving signals, the populace join in one voice:-- 'Come, ye, from lands oppressed, Come, ye, from east and west, Come, join our happy throng, Come, join in joyous song,-- For in this goodly land, nor want, nor poor, No kings oppress, no beggars seek the door. In Plenty's beauteous lap we wile the days away, Come, 'walk into our trap'--why need you long delay?' "These dulcet tones were always supposed to help fill the immigrant ships, the vacancies caused by the strike, and the land-boomer's pockets, but just as the last faint echoes die away, there arises from the narrow lane 'hard by'--just off Broadway--the plaintive wail:-- 'Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, E'er the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And _that_ cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the West,-- But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.' "Of course, my children, these borrowed lamentations may come from the fellows who were left out in the cold at the last elections, for one 'can't most always sometimes tell,' in America, whence come the inspiring motives of the entertainment. "Let me tell you a little story, my children.