Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child
John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Ed.

[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 him? 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 “interviewer” !

I am 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 Commissioners. 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