Here, too, is our legal brother, John H. Cook, colored, following modestly in the footsteps of his paler-faced brother, Totten. John found the field open and went in and made a goodly harvest of fees. Ordinarily, John H. Cook’s clients are of the ten, fifteen, and twenty dollar class. Here, however, he improved on himself, like Mr. Frederick Douglass. John H. Cook, a member in good standing at the Washington Bar, never forgets that he is a friend of “his race.” I would here say, however, that I am assured by several members of the Washington Bar that Mr. Cook’s services in behalf of the bank extended over as long a period of time and were quite as valuable as those rendered by Mr. Totten. A glance at the list of his charges, published below, will at least convince the reader that he was more modest in making up his accounts. Why the Commissioners should have discriminated against color in this remarkable manner is a question the reader can decide for himself. There are other attorneys-at-law, plain and colored, who were employed by the Commissioners, and who got fees to a very considerable amount; but I nowhere find the name of that eminent patriot and statesman, John Andrew Jackson Creswell. Indeed he does not seem to have rendered legal or any other service, notwithstanding General Grant’s assurance that as a lawyer he would be very useful in winding up the affairs of the bank. Here is Brother Cook’s account current for legal services. I have omitted dates: John H. Cook $2 00 ” 59 00 ” 155 00 ” 15 00 ” 325 00 ” 44 00 ” 7 00 ” 15 00 ” 132 00 ” 110 00 ” 115 00 ” 246 00 ” 45 00 ” 170 00 ” 106 00 ” 864 00 ” 340 00 ” 160 00 ” 154 00 ” 95 00 ” 21 00 ” 95 00 ” 10 00 ” 200 00 ” 29 00 ” 130 00 ” 73 00 ” 50 00 ” 25 00 --------- $3,792 00 One of the worst features of this bad case, one which will astonish and set the intelligent reader to thinking, will be found in the fact that these Commissioners, whose feelings seem blunted by avarice, again employed the man G. W. Stickney, and in defiance of law, and I was going to say decency itself, paid him the salary of a Commissioner. This of itself should condemn them as unfit for their high trust.