nth--since which exertion he had
been himself helpless--so long did he serve his country faithfully and
well. But when he came home to die, though some half a dozen Union
families knew his condition, only one paid him the least attention and
respect. It may be supposed this was because his relatives and their
immediate friends were abundantly able to minister to his wants, so that
any outside proffers would seem but officiousness. On the contrary, his
relatives were poor, sickly, and, doubtless because of sickness,
inefficient people. However strange, it is nevertheless true, that
members from two of these Union families, some of them attendants on the
aid society, and all loudly patriotic people, ridiculed the attention of
the one Union family who did try to cheer the suffering soldier,
expressing the sentiment that they would scorn to pay him any attention,
'his people were such a mean, low set.' That was the term applied to the
relatives of the dying hero! and this--not because they failed in
patriotism--not because they were guilty of any immoralities--but
because they were burdened, beyond their strength, by poverty and ill
fortune! And this neglect was persisted in till the end. The dying boy
felt the cruelty of it--if he did not also feel the ingratitude of
it--as may be inferred from the last words he uttered, wherein, after
alluding to the family who did minister to him, he added, with parting
breath, the melancholy comment: 'I am glad somebody noticed me.'

This instance of the pride of class in our country going so far as to
destroy the impulses of ordinary charity, and to blot out of the
conscience the claims of a suffering soldier upon the personal gratitude
of every patriotic heart that can reach him, is, we do hope and believe,
an extreme case. But being a fact, and one illustrative of the
contradiction between the principles of our government and the
principles that sway our social life, we relate it in order to vividly
impress the mournful reality of that contradiction, and the consequent
urgent duty of all women who are indeed patriotic, to make earnest
efforts to bring the daily life of our people, in dress, manners, home
surroundings, and motives of action in family and social circles nearer
to the spirit of true democracy.

To do this requires so much of personal culture and denial of selfish,
arrogant instincts in ourselves, so much of modification in our training
of our children, so much uprootin