The Tupelo journal., 1903-03-20
MRS. ARP OBJECTS.
Thinks Bill Ought to Quit Writing
About the Negro.
says the Matter Has Been All Set
tied mt Atlanta-Talismanic NUM-
bers in the Arp Wedding AN
niversary-TIle Children.

My wife reads the papers more or
less every day and keeps up with the
sensations. Most of the time she sits
in her accustomed corner and plies her
needle and thread, making little gar
ments for her grandchildren or new
covers for the cushions or mending
underclothes or darning stockings or
something. When she gets tired she
walks in the garden OF goes down to
see Jessie and the children. She went
to town yesterday and bought some
thread and some toilet soap and got
weighed and asked the family all
around to guess how much, and one
guessed it, exactly one hundred and
fifty pounds. She asked me to guess,
but l said no-she had had her way so
often and so long that couldn't come
near it, and she shook her fist at me.
Good gracious! when | married her
she didn't weigh a hundred and wore
number two shoes and stepped like a
deer. "Tempus fugit." Next week will
be the ~ffty-fourth anniversary of u
weddingday, fifty-four-the talismanic
number made up of nine or its multi
pie, as 3, &, 9, Is, ~, 54-3 and 6 are
8, l and are ., . and fare 0, 5and4are
8. And soon our birthdays will come
along again, the first and fifteenth of
June, and time keeps rolling on.
My wife was reading the paper and
suddenly stopped and spoke to me, say
iT3n. .sINal ;r,,'+ - about +,.o -, 1,,,+
writing about the negro?" why sop
said |. "Why, don't you see that the
whole business of the race problem
was settled in Atlanta last Sunday?
The mayor and the preachers, black
and white, all made speeches, and
seemed to agree and everything is
harmonious. SO if | was you | would
write about something else. Take up
George Washington, for a change, and
let Booker go dead"
Well, they did play on the harmoni-
can right smart, and hope the prob
lem will take a rest, for everybody is
tired Of it. Even Crumpacker is tired,
and says the negro must work out his
W salvation. That's all right. When
they call off the dogs, I'll quit. They
are waking up to the true character of
the negro. a Chicago man who has
been visiting the prisons says there are
about forty-siN thousand negroes in
that city, which is about two per cent.
of the population and that the prison
records as shown him by wardens,
show the negroes to be thirty per cent,
of all the criminals confined, and that
the negro quarter OF the city is the rem
devious and the refuge of nearly all the
white burglars and thieves that infest
the city.
But that's none of my business, as
my wife says. Chicago needs them for
municipal politics. But / have quit.
Let the negro go along and evolute, as
Crumpacker says. l had rather look
out of my window and see two little
girls coming up the walk hand in hand
to see me than to write about my
thing. And the little boy is coming,
too. His nurse is rolling him in his
carriage and he will run to me as soon
as he gets in the room, and will nestle
on my knees, and say his little words,
and my greatest comfort is that all of
them love me and won't 90 home with
out kissing me a sweet good-by. That
nurse is a copper-colored girl about
twelve years old, and she loves that
baby and watches him as carefully as
a mother. She is the daughter of our
sexton, who is the ~janitor of the public
school. He and his good wife are ex-
ceptions to all the frailties of the race.
and so are their children, If there were
many like them there would be no race
problem. Those three little children
come to see me every day and make me
to forget myself and my long illness,
and find myself whispering: "Sufferlit-
tie children to come unto me-" And a
little child shall lead them" What a
pity they have to grow up and lose