Читать книгу The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe онлайн

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"It appears," the article said, "that during the earlier part of the morning a tenant of the building observed a woman sleeping in the cellar, but no particular notice was taken of this because of the fact that strangers frequently utilized the cellar for such purposes. Mr. Oliver, one of the occupants of the building, had occasion to go downstairs, and saw the woman. She was crouched in a corner and her head was lying back. The police were called in and the services of Doctor Barton were requisitioned.... Although the cause of death will not be known until a post-mortem examination of the body has been made, death, it is thought, was due to starvation. The woman was about six feet in height, between forty and fifty years of age, and was in a very emaciated condition and clad in very scanty attire."

Not infrequently, when in my public speeches I have made some reference to the condition of the Negro in the South, certain members of my own race in the North have objected because, they said, I did not paint conditions in the South black enough. During my stay in England I had the unusual experience of being criticised in the London newspapers for the same reason, this time by an American white man. At the very moment that this man attacked me because in my public interviews I emphasized the opportunities rather than the wrongs of the Negro in the South I had in my possession the document to which I have referred, which gives the official history of fifty-two persons, one for every week in the year, who had died in the city of London alone for want of food.