Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1910 — Adorning a Tale. [ARTICLE]

Adorning a Tale.

In the “Autobiography” of Albert Pell, that fine old English gentleman whose whole life was devoted to the reform of the English poor laws and to the general uplifting and Improvement of the condition, moral, social and political, of the English agricultural laborer, It is related that one of the first well known men whom he met as a small boy was Wilberforce, who used to stay with his father, Sir Albert Pell, in the country. When one of Pell’s friends was an infant in arms, his nurse was swept by an election mob to the very foot of the York hustings, at a famous contest for the county in which Wilberforce was one of the principal actors. With all the earnestness and vigor which distinguished him be was pressing his beneficent views on the abolition of slavery. * Carried away by the depths of his convictions and enthusiastic inspiration, he reached over the balcony, and snatching the baby from the arms of its astonished nurse, held it up over his head in the face of the people, exclaiming: “See this and hear my prophecy! Before this child dies there will not be a white man In the world owning a slave.” My friend, adds Mr. Pell, survived the Civil War in the United States, and virtually Wilberforce’s prophecy was fulfilled.