THE WASHERS AND THE SCRUBBERS—THE MEN WHO ROBBED THEM.

The last report of the three Commissioners for winding up (this is a misnomer) the affairs of the bankrupt Freedmen’s Bank, brought out in response to a resolution of Congress, introduced by the Honorable Nicholas Muller, of New York, is one of the most remarkable documents ever given to the American people. It is remarkable as illustrating the heartlessness of man; remarkable as illustrating the amount of scoundrelism there is in our social and political organizations; and remarkable for its exemplification of those trite sayings so common among the slaves of the South before the war, and which I have placed at the head of this article. “White man very unsartin.” “Nigger haint got no friends, no how.”

I again approach this black chapter in the history of the great—perhaps I should say once great—Republican party with feelings of sadness. Here, in this remarkable report, we have man’s inhumanity to man portrayed in all its darkest colors.

Just here let me pause for a moment to thank kind, generous-hearted Mr. Muller for introducing the resolution which brought out the strange chapter of scoundrelism contained in this remarkable report. And I do this the more cheerfully because he is a Democrat and I am an old time Republican, perhaps I should say Abolitionist, and had failed in three attempts to get a Republican to introduce it.

Before proceeding to dissect this remarkable report, however, I propose to say, as a matter of history, something in regard to the formation of the plot concocted by, to use a vulgar phrase, Boss Shepherd and his Ring to rob this bank for the earnings of the poor.