Wall, Maggie spozed the case, and I did; we said, spozin’ the ones that lifted that blind man up onto the horse should take him off on it a spell as easy as they could, so’s not to hurt his feelin’s, and then go to doctorin’ the man’s eyes, to try to get him so he can see; hold the horse for him till he can see; curb the horse down so it will go smoother some; encourage the man by tellin’ him the truth that you are a keepin’ the horse for him, and he is a goin’ to get up onto him agin and ride him as soon as he can see, and the sooner he gets his eyesight the sooner he can ride. [Illustration: ROSY.] Give him the sure cure for his blindness, and then if he won’t lay holt and cure himself, let him go afoot as long as the world stands. Give the black man and the poor whites plenty of means for study and self-improvement. Give them the Bible and good schools, plenty of religious and seckular teachers, and I believe they will improve, will become safe guides to foller and to guide themselves, whether in this land or in another, wherever their future may lay. Sez Thomas Jefferson: “The same rule would work well to the North as well as the South.” “Heaven knows it would,” sez I. It hain’t becomin’ in us to cast motes and forget beams. Heaven knows that our criminals, and paupers, and drunkards, and the foreign convicts and jail-birds landed on our shores are not safe gardeens to trust our life and liberties to. This mass of ignorance and vice, native and foreign, that swarms to the polls, bought for a measure of whiskey, ought to be dealt with in the same way. Men who can’t read the names on the ballots can’t see deep enough into the urena of political life to be safe guides to foller, to be safe gardeens to the helpless wimmen and children committed to their care. Liberty is too priceless a jewel to be committed into such vile hands, such weak hands, hands that would and do barter it away to the highest bidder. Liberty and Freedom sold for a glass of beer. The right of suffrage, the patent of our American nobility, to be squandered and degraded for a pipeful of tobacco. The idee! And kneelin’ in churches, sez I, and settin’ apart in their own homes are royal souls, grand, educated lovers of their country and their kind, who would for duty’s sake reach out one hand to take the ballot, and cling with the other to the cross of the Crucified. Them who have agonized over the woes and wrongs of the world, and tried with anointed vision to find out the true wisdom of life and right livin’—have spent their whole noble lives for the good of poor humanity— They must kneel on in silence, and stay in seclusion, and see the freedom of their children and the children of humanity bought and sold, and sunk in the dirt, and trailed in the mire by them who have never given a thought to righteousness and right livin’.