“Weeks passed on, and the soldier’s wife found herself without the means of purchasing food for her children.  The hour had at last arrived when she was utterly destitute.  In the meantime her husband lay in a foreign prison, ignorant of the unhappy fate his wife was undergoing.  Many are the nights we have walked to and fro on the grounds of Camp Douglas, and often has he spoken to me of his absent wife and children.  I know him, gentlemen, and never in the breast of man beat a heart truer than his, nor in the minds of God’s mortals were there ever finer and nobler impulses.  While he was thus suffering confinement for his country’s sake, his wife and children were here—­in our very midst, starving!  Aye, starving!  Think of it, gentlemen—­that in the midst of those who were supposed to be friends—­the wife and children of a patriot were allowed to starve.  Great God! is there on earth a spectacle so fearful to behold as starvation?  And is it not enough to evoke the wrath of the Infinite, when men, surrounded by all that wealth can afford, refuse to aid and succor their starving fellow creatures?

“You may think that no man can be found who would refuse, but I tell you, gentlemen, that that man who now stands before you, was appealed to by this lady, the accused, after she had disposed of every piece of furniture in the room, save and except the bed on which her children slept.  The appeal was rejected, and, despairing of help, she offered and sold to him the last remaining article of furniture.  Here now is the picture.  He could not lend or give her a paltry pittance; and why, forsooth?  Because the money would not yield him a profit, and there was a chance of his losing it.  But the moment she offered to dispose of the bed, he purchased it, for in it did the profit of the speculator lie hidden, and on it could he get his money doubled.  Think not, gentlemen, that the tale you have listened to from him is the true one.  It is a varnished and highly colored evidence, beneath which a wide extent of corruption can be seen, the moment its curtain is removed.

“The pittance thus obtained serves but a short time, and they are again reduced to want.  The eldest child—­a lovely daughter, is taken ill, and while lying on a heap of rags in a corner of the room, the man calls and demands his rent.  The poor woman has no money to satisfy his demands and he orders her to leave.  She appeals to him, points to her ill child; but her prayers are unavailing—­and in the hour of night she is thrust from the room, homeless, penniless, friendless!  Yes! he—­that man who now sits in the jury-box—­he—­Mr. Elder, the so-called Christian and man of CHARITY—­he, ejected this helpless woman from the shelter and forced her to wander in the night air with her sick child—­her starving babes.  He—­the extortioner”—­continued Harry, with every feature expressing the utmost scorn, “turned her from the wretched home she had found