Excerpt from North America and Africa: Their Past, Present and Future In offering this little book to the public, the writer begs leave to say it is written in the interest of humanity. He is no politician; never an office-holder, either civil or mili tary, under any government. For thirty years a hard worker in all the financial and benevolent enterprises in his reach; has been a great sufferer in health, spirits and for tune, from the results of the late war, which he had no hand in creating, no power to avert, nor pleasure in its con tinuance; but always viewed it as a great calamity which wise statesmen ought to have prevented; and, failing to do so, believes the private, hard working citizens should no longer suffer for the error of others, but that after four years of devastating war and ten years of hardships, anxiety and distress, we should now be relieved and permitted to spend the remnant of our days in the enjoyment of comfort, peace and prosperity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.