It seemed to me that they both pitied and admired the man who had conceived this novel way of advertising his misfortune. I have noticed these same people in other cases where it seemed to me they looked with something like envy upon a beggar who was blind or lame or had some other interesting misfortune which enabled him to win the sympathy of the public.
Of course the persons that I have attempted to describe do not represent the labouring classes. They represent the man at the bottom, who lives by begging or casual labour. It shows, nevertheless, how bitter is the struggle for existence among the labouring class higher up, that the class below, the class which lives in actual poverty, is so large and so much in evidence.
While I was in London I received letters from a great many persons of all classes and conditions. One of these was from a coloured man who was born and raised in the South and was anxious to get back home. I am tempted to quote some passages of his letter here, because they show how conditions impressed a coloured man from the South who got closer to them than I was able to. He had been living, he said, in London for fourteen months without work.
"I have tried to apply for work," he continued. "They said they want Englishmen. It seems to me that all Britain are against the Negro race. Some say, 'Go back to your own country,' knowing if I had the means I would fly to-morrow."
Perhaps I would do better to quote some passages from his letter verbatim. He says:
I cannot get a passage; to be alone in London without any help or funds, like a pin in a haystack, nothing but sorrow and distress. Hearing Mr. B. T. Washington were in London I appeal to him in the name of God Almighty if he can possibly help me with a ticket to get across, because the lady that was kind enough to give me a shelter is without fund herself; being a Christian woman she gave me food for what she can afford. At night I have to sleep in a house with a widow which has two children which has to make her living by chopping wood, whom some day, does not earn enough to buy a loaf of bread for her children. The winter is coming on and I like to get home to shuck corn or to get to Maryland for a oyster draggin. It is a long time since I had watermelon, pig's feet and corn. Say, Mr. Washington, if you ever knew what a man in a hole is I guess I am in a hole and the cover over. I can see the pork chops and the corn bread and the hot biscuits calling me to come over and get some and many a time I have tried but failed. I can't reach them; the great Atlantic Ocean stop me and I remain