Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE
uncivilized again. We have not been thinking of
that. Very well, we ought to think of it now. Our
missionaries will find that we have a field for themand not only for the 1,511, but for I5,oII. Let them
look at the following telegram and see if they have
anything in China that is more appetizing. It is
from Texas:
The negro was taken to a tree and swung in the air. Wood and
fodder were piled beneath his body and a hot fire was made.
Then it was suggested that the man ought not to die too quickly,
and he was let down to the ground while a party went to Dexter,
about two miles distant, to procure coal oil. This was thrown on
the flames and the work completed.
We implore them to come back and help us in our
need. Patriotism imposes this duty on them. Our
country is worse off than China; they are our countrymen, their motherland supplicates their aid in
this her hour of deep distress. They are competent;
our people are not. They are used to scoffs, sneers,
revilings, danger; our people are not. They have
the martyr spirit; nothing but the martyr spirit
can brave a lynching mob, and cow it and scatter it.
They can save their country, we beseech them to
come home and do it. We ask them to read that
telegram again, and yet again, and picture the scene
in their minds, and soberly ponder it; then multiply
it by 115, add 88; place the 203 in a row, allowing
600 feet of space for each human torch, so that there
may be viewing room around it for 5,000 Christian
American men, women, and children, youths and
maidens; make it night, for grim effect; have the
show in a gradually rising plain, and let the course
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