est.

A few months ago I dined with ex-Senator B.K. Bruce (of Mississippi),
now Register of the United States Treasury. The ex-Senator has a
handsome house, and a delightful family. In running my eyes over his
card tray, I saw the names of some of the foremost men and women of
the nation who had called upon Register and Mrs. Bruce. In passing
through the Register's department with the Senator, sight-seeing, I
was not surprised at the marks of respect shown to Mr. Bruce by the
white ladies and gentlemen in his department. Why? Because Mr. Bruce
is a gentleman by instinct, a diplomat by nature, and a scholar who
has "burned the midnight oil." Such a person does not have to ask men
and women to respect him; they do so instinctively.

I walked down F street and called at the office of Prof. Richard T.
Greener, a ripe scholar and a gentleman. The professor not only has a
paying law practice, but is president of a new insurance company. He
has all that he can do, and his patrons are both black and white.

All this and more came under my observation in the course of an hour's
leisure at the capital of the nation. And the black man has not yet
aroused himself to a full sense of his responsibilities or of his
opportunities.

In Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston we have colored men
of large wealth, who conduct extensive business operations and enjoy
the confidence and esteem of their fellow citizens without regard to
caste.

Speaking upon the progress of the colored race, in the course of an
address on the "Civil Rights Law," at Washington, October 20, 1883,
the Hon. John Mercer Langston, United States Minister and Consul
General to Hayti, and one of the most remarkable, scholarly, and
diplomatic men the colored race in America has produced, drew the
following pen-picture:

Do you desire to witness moral wonders? Start at Chicago;
travel to St. Louis; travel to Louisville; travel to
Nashville; travel to Chattanooga; travel on to New Orleans,
and in every State and city you will meet vast audiences,
immense concourses of men and women with their children,
boys and girls, who, degraded and in ignorance because of
their slavery formerly, are to-day far advanced in general
social improvement.

It would be remarkable now for you to go into the home of
one of our families, and find even our daughters incompetent
to discourse with you upon any subject of genera