Front matter

Transcriber’s Note:

There are two footnotes, which have been moved to directly follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced.

The full page drawings are also moved to avoid falling in mid-paragaph. The pages given in the list of illustrations refer to their original page numbers, but here serve as hyperlinks directly to the images. Their page numbers are skipped in the text itself.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Corrected text will appear in the text with a gray underline. Placing the cursor over the text will display the original version. A brief explanation can be found by consulting the endnotes for the relevant page.

Corrected text will appear in the text as a link to the corresponding explanatory entry in the endnotes.

IBetsy Gaskins

“That every star was an eye looking down on me with pity.” (CHAPTER XXXVIII.)

BETSY GASKINS (Dimicrat), Wife of Jobe Gaskins (Republican) Or, Uncle Tom’s Cabin Up to Date

By....

W. I. HOOD

With Illustrations

from Original Drawings

by C. B. FALLS

And an Appendix

Edited by K. L.

ARMSTRONG

CHICAGO:

THE WABASH PUBLISHING HOUSE

No. 324 Dearborn Street

Copyright, 1897,

By W. I. HOOD.

All rights reserved.

Notice.—The illustrations in this work are engraved from original drawings from life, and their reproduction, except by special permission from the publishers, is prohibited.

Betsy Gaskins.

Jobe Gaskins.

viiPREFACE.

THIS book is written for a purpose. It is founded upon actual occurrences. Betsy and Jobe Gaskins are characters well known to you, if you will but reflect upon events coming under your own observation within the past few years.

The author claims no inspiration or gift of genius. This is only a simple statement of facts deserving the consideration of every intelligent human being. While you read these pages, if you will permit your intelligence to assert itself over your prejudices, and if finally you will do that which the nobler instincts of man prompt you to do toward bringing about a better condition of things under the government of which you are a part, the author will be fully repaid for his labor. He asks you only to keep in mind at all times that Jobe Gaskins is your brother; that Betsy Gaskins is your sister.

W. I. Hood.

New Philadelphia, Ohio, April 24, 1897.

viii

“GOD, by giving to man wants and making his recourse to work necessary to supply them, has made the right to work the property of every man; and this property is the first, the most sacred, the most imprescriptible of all.”—Turgot.

“THE right to work is the right to worship. The clink of the anvil and the hum of the harvest field, the music of the poet and the meditations of the inventor are chords in the anthem of creation.”—Henry D. Lloyd.

ix