classification of rights in common, yet in time
they amount to the same. The mere statement that "the colored brother
can have half of their blankets whenever they want them," while
doubtless a figure of speech, yet it signifies that under this very
extreme of speech an appreciable advance of the race. It does not mean
that there is to be a storming of the social barriers, for even in the
more favored races definite lines are drawn. Sets and circles adjust
such matters. But what is desired is the toleration of the Negroes in
those pursuits that the people engage in or enjoy in general and in
common. It is all that the American Negro may expect, and it is safe
to say that his ambitions do not run higher, and ought not to run
higher. Money and birth in themselves have created some unwritten
laws that are much stronger than those decreed and promulgated by
governments. It would be the height of presumption to strike at these,
to some extent privileged classes. It is to be hoped that the good
fortunes of war will produce sanity and stability in the race,
contending for abstract justice.--_Freeman._

The testimony continues:

Private Smith of the Seventy-first Volunteers, speaking about the
impression his experience at Santiago had made upon him, said:

"I am a Southerner by birth, and I never thought much of the colored
man. But, somewhat, now I feel very differently toward them, for I
met them in camp, on the battle field and that's where a man gets to
know a man. I never saw such fighting as those Tenth Cavalry men did.
They didn't seem to know what fear was, and their battle hymn was,
'There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night. That's not a
thrilling hymn to hear on the concert stage, but when you are lying in
a trench with the smell of powder in your nose and the crack of rifles
almost deafening you and bullets tearing up the ground around you
like huge hailstones beating down the dirt, and you see before you a
blockhouse from which there belches fourth the machine gun, pouring a
torrent of leaden missiles, while from holes in the ground you see
the leveled rifles of thousands of enemies that crack out death in
ever-increasing succession and then you see a body of men go up that
hill as if it were in drill, so solid do they keep their formation,
and those men are yelling, 'There'll be a hot time in the old town
to-night,' singing as if they liked their work, why, there's an
appropriateness in the tune that kind