thus cheat us out of our rightful dues. Who was the conductor, that
behaved in the manner you have described? We will turn him away, if he
doesn't know better how to use the discretionary power with which he is
entrusted."

Friend Hopper replied, "I had rather thou wouldst not turn him out of
thy employ, unless he repeats the offence, after being properly
instructed. I have no wish to injure the man. He has become infected
with the unjust prejudices of the community without duly reflecting upon
the subject. Friendly conversation with him may suggest wiser thoughts.
All I ask of thee is to instruct him that the rights of the meanest
citizen are to be respected. I thank thee for having listened to my
complaint in such a candid and courteous manner."

"And I thank you for having come to inform us of the circumstance,"
replied the manager. They parted mutually well pleased; and a few days
after, the same conductor admitted a colored woman into the cars
without making any objection. This improved state of things continued
several weeks. But the old tyrannical system was restored, owing to
counteracting influence from some unknown quarter. I often met colored
people coming from the country in the Harlem cars; but I never afterward
knew one to enter from the streets of the city.

Many colored people die every year, and vast numbers have their health
permanently impaired, on account of inclement weather, to which they are
exposed by exclusion from public conveyances. And this merely on account
of complexion! What a tornado of popular eloquence would come from our
public halls, if Austria or Russia were guilty of any despotism half as
mean! Yet the great heart of the people is moved by kind and sincere
feelings in its outbursts against foreign tyranny. But in addition to
this honorable sympathy for the oppressed in other countries, it would
be well for them to look at home, and consider whether it is just that
any well-behaved people should be excluded from the common privileges of
public conveyances. If a hundred citizens in New-York would act as
Friend Hopper did, the evil would soon be remedied. It is the almost
universal failure in individual duty, which so accumulates errors and
iniquities in society, that the ultra-theories, and extra efforts of
reformers become absolutely necessary to prevent the balance of things
from being destroyed; as thunder and lightning are required to purify a
polluted atmosphere. Godwin, in so