Two hundred more are equally destitute and as helpless, many of them as young children, needing the personal care that patients in our hospitals do, not excepting medical treatment and bathing. Add to these five hundred, who under the most favorable circumstances may, though do not generally, furnish their bread three months in the summer, by picking up bones and rags in the alleys and gutters, I believe I may safely say that out of the eleven hundred there are not one hundred who can do this, and pay house-rent beside. And it must be remembered that none of these old people own a foot of ground in the city, or have a home they can call their own. A few of these only live with children, some of whom are also very old. Fanny Miner, one hundred and thirteen, lives with a daughter seventy-two. William Dennis, ninety-nine, lives with a daughter seventy-four. Anna Sauxter, one hundred and one, with a consumptive son of sixty, and has slept on an old table through the winter watching, as she says, two days and a night at one time, with no food at all. She was one of the slaves of Washington. Anna Ferguson, another of his slaves, emancipated when young, lives in a wretched garret, and has no one to give her a cup of water. She sent a child to me to-day, who said she went in to borrow some fire of "old auntie," and found her very sick, groaning with dreadful pain, with the message that she was perishing for something to eat; could I send her an Irish potato? She added in her message, "Tell her to come and see me, I'll not be here long."
I have just now returned from a visit on "the Island," where I have seen twenty-seven of these helpless persons, a few cases of which (could you see them) would leave no doubt in your mind in reference to the necessity of a change from the present state of things. I saw enough in this visit to fill a book, and could tongue or pen describe it—to convince the mind of a savage—of terrible inhumanity and lack of all charity. The morning was sunny and clear, and old Aunt Clara and Uncle John sat on broken chairs, under the rude perch of a miserable shanty. He, tall and athletic, his long white beard and snow-white head, impressive as the type of venerable age, was putting Aunt Clara's foot into a soft shoe as carefully as though it was the last time it could be dressed. She 74, neat and velvet-faced, was stone blind, and so paralyzed that the slightest touch on the arm or hand made her spring and cry like a child. The shock put out both her eyes, and made her as helpless as an infant in all particulars.
For one year she has been unable to feed herself, undress, or to do anything to relieve the monotony of utter helplessness. He had brought her out in the sun, there was no window in their room, and had spread a cloth on her lap, as she said, hoping somebody would come along who would comb her hair. Uncle John was 14, he says, when Washington died. Not a child or a friend to go to them, there they stay. They said they had nothing to eat last night, and were often two days without a pint of meal, and nothing like food in the house, for the old man said, "When mamma has her 'poor turns', I never leaves her, and nobody ever feeds her but me, or dresses or undresses her." I shall not forget how the tears dropped from her face, as she told the story of her life. "A woman once, but nobody now, comfort all gone, and hungry and cold the rest of my days." Her mind was unimpaired, and her faith unwavering.
Henry and Milly Lang were two squares away; persons between sixty and seventy, living in a shanty used in time of the war as a stable. For five years they have lived there, paying, in all but the last two months, four dollars a month rent. Milly is also stone blind, and sick and helpless. They were in great distress, had no food in the house, for Henry has hip disease, and for eleven weeks has not walked a step. On every side I could look through the open boards, and when the last storms came, they said the rain came down on the whole floor, covering it, so they sat on the pallet all day. The landlord has ordered them to leave the house in five days, to put in a cow instead! Friendless, homeless, penniless!!! and yet must eat or die. Three of those I saw were over one hundred—one had five children, when Washington died, lived in his county. Sixteen were over seventy. Not one of them had a child in this city. Five were over 80; and all of these whom I saw were as dependent as infants.
Johnny Scraper sat in rags, paralyzed from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, alone in a six-by-ten-foot room, unable to walk a step, yet is left entirely alone, sometimes for three days. If he has anything brought in to eat, he thanks God; if not, he must do without it. Tuesday and Saturday night he says a fellow-servant, living in a distant part of the city, came to see him, and sometimes brought a piece of fish or meat; this is all the chance he has for anything, except a little meal or dry bread. Every one of these old people complained that they were dying for some meat—were so weak. Aunt Dinah said that she went out on the street last week and begged of the school children, who gave her seven cents, and she went into a grocery to buy a piece of meat, and received there five cents more. "Oh!" said she, "how that strengthened me, it lasted me three days."
I might go on and fill the sheet with incidents of these extremely aged pilgrims and strangers in this city, for whom nobody cares. But I should fail to convey to you any just idea of what they suffer, because you can see there is no parallel to their status. In no city on the globe can you find a people to whom the words of Wood (I think it is) so well apply—"paupers whom nobody owns." You must see them as they are to believe.
The Government says, "They need provisions, let the city be taxed." The city says, "We care for the multitude of legitimate paupers of the Government—pensioners, who die waiting for their claims, but these are special wards, brought to the capital by special legislation, not any of them voluntary residents. We are unable to provide for this surplus of poor." Turning to the people of the country, they say, "We have given them their freedom, let them take care of themselves!" To the Abolitionists, and they rebuke us for listening to their cry, and say, "It is no more than must be expected; let them alone and they will die off." Even the loudest professors have said to me, "As long as you will take care of these poor old creatures, so long you may; there are plenty of others to come." So turn which way we may, we are met with coldness and distrust.
I come now to you, and ask what is our duty to these worn-out slaves, whose labor we have enjoyed in the general prosperity, and whose destiny on earth we have fixed by legislation, over which they could have no control? In old age we have taken from their homes these people, and calling them "free," we have said to them, "Be ye warmed and clothed," and then gone on our way. Had I, like most others, have been so fortunate as not to have met these old people, on the day of arrival here as they came out from slavery, nor have listened to the thousand witnesses, that have each day testified to utter inability to live without charity, as a practical relief, I might as easily as they, perhaps, satisfy my conscience by the above reasoning; but one thing is sure, whoever stands in my place will find no half-way measure will answer. They can not look these people in the face, as they come, averaging under the present arrangements of the Secretary of War two hundred a day, to ask for bread and wood, and clothes and shoes and shelter, and bed and blanket and medicine, not one of whom can be satisfied without food.
One of the most distressing days we have seen was last Tuesday, when two hundred and fifty all broken down, stood and sat, three long hours, waiting and hoping that the Commissary would send bread or rations, but none came, and we could get only twenty-five loaves for them. Many came from the suburbs of the town, some from over the river, not less than five miles away, and had left an aged companion and orphan grandchildren on the alert for their return, with something for a dinner or a meal. But nothing came; and yet, as they left with sorrow in their faces, that almost breaks my heart to think of, in their meek way one after another said, "You'se done all you could, Honey, we'll do the best we can, and come again to-morrow."
You see, these people must eat. Bread must be furnished every day, rain or shine, hot or cold. I ask what is our duty? Will God perform a miracle to feed this multitude? I can not ask you, "Is it safe to leave them in the hands of the Government or the city?" I have for six years plead, as for the life of them, with both. None but God knows how earnestly I have laid their claims before officials in the highest departments. By the greatest efforts, and with the sympathy of a small number of friends, who in Congress see with us, and have from the beginning, that the repudiation of this claim must call down upon the Nation the just judgments of heaven, we have secured the special appropriations up to this time.