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