Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 221
insufferable a nuisance as mosquitoes; and in these
days there is no kind of netting that will keep the
pests out. Certainly the prophesied day has arrived,
when whatsoever is done in the house is proclaimed
upon the house-top. Was Dr. Livingstone really
" interviewed " by a Yankee "interviewer?" Why
don't we hear further from himn? What has become of the party headed by Dr. Livingstone's son,
that set out in search of him before Stanley? Professional interviewers manufacture interviews when
they do not succeed in finding the individual they
propose to bore. Even such a small lion as I am has
been served up in that style. Years ago there was a
column in the " New York Tribune " describing me in
a place where I never was, looking as I never looked,
and saying things I never said or thought of. Even
the heart of Africa is not a place of safety, and if
one were to climb Himalaya, some sort of pulley
would be contrived to hoist up an 1" interviewer "!
I amn so sorry about the Modocs! I have no doubt
the poor wretches had been goaded to desperation
before they committed that wanton and most impolitic assault upon the Peace Comnlissioners. White
men have so perpetually lied to them that they don't
know whom, or what, to believe. And after all, we,
who are so much more enlightened, and who profess
to be so much more human, have again and again
killed Indians who were decoyed into our power by a
flag of truce. No mortal will ever know the accumulated wrongs of that poor people. No wonder they
turn at bay, in their desperation and despair....
You ask if I am in favor of the prohibitory law. I
am. Its aim is, and its effect would be, to diminish,
if not entirely to suppress, groggeries; and a large