Page:Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House.djvu/339

cruel newspaper abuse lavished upon an unoffending woman as has been showered upon my devoted head? The people of this ungrateful country are like the 'dogs in the manger;' will neither do anything themselves, nor allow me to improve my own condition. What a Government we have! All their abuse lavished upon me only lowers themselves in the estimation of all true-hearted people. The Springfield Journal had an editorial a few days since, with the important information that Mrs. Lincoln had been known to be deranged for years, and should be pitied for all her strange acts. I should have been all right if I had allowed them to take possession of the White House. In the comfortable stealings by contracts from the Government, these low creatures are allowed to hurl their malicious wrath at me, with no one to defend me or protect me, if I should starve. These people injure themselves far more than they could do me, by their lies and villany. Their aim is to prevent my goods being sold, or