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To Tole With Watermelons.

One of the important points in Mr. —'s letter is that he is in favor of the pamphlet one dollars' worth. It will be especially needed to offset the effect of "Colored Folk's Day" at the world's fair, which will be August 25. Some colored men have promised, to get two hundred thousand colored excursionists there that day, and the officials of the exposition have been published as lightly in favor of the idea. The horticultural department has already pledged itself to put plenty of watermelons around on the grounds with permission to the brother in black to "appropriate" them. The secret of the kindness (?) of the world's fair commissioner's is that the attendance at the fair has been very poor all along, and the colored brother has been especially conspicuous by his absence. This "Colored Folks' Day" is to be an extra inducement to have him come. He has been shut out of any other participation in the fair except to spend his money there, and as he has not been doing that very freely, a cordial invitation to do so is given at the eleventh hour, because colored men are urging this scheme to put thousands of dollars in the pockets of the railroad corporations and the world's fair folks who thought no Negro good enough for an official position among them it will succeed. The self-respect of the race is sold for a mass of pottage and the spectacle of the class of our people which will come on that excursion roaming around the grounds munching watermelons will do more to lower the race in the estimation of the word than anything else. The sight of the horde that would be attracted there by the dazzling prospect of plenty of free watermelons to eat will give our enemies all the illustration they wish as excuse for not treating the Afro-American with the equally of other citizens — Ida B. Wells' Chicago letter to the N. Y. Age.