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Show 36 NOTES ON Henderson says, (STATE vs. REED, Appendix, E. 2,) " these are not the laws of our country, nor the model from which they are taken." As to tho other allegation in quotation (1,) I ans,-er it by a slight change of language, tho substituted words being put in italics: "So long as the fa.ilurc, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest husband and father, may cause his 'wife and children, any day, to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil, so long ~t is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in tho best regulated administration of the 8ocial system." If the argument is good in the one case, it is in tho other. Indeed in the latter, it is the stronger of the two; for, in exchanging masters, the slu.vc may get as good a one, or he ma,y get a better one, or he may get a worse one; nnd therefore, on the doctrine of chances, not more than one time in three will he get a worse one; and as even in this case, the new master may be only a little worse, or, consi· derably worse, or, n. good deal worse in every shade and degree of comparison, the chances of his getting a very bad one, arc very small ; 'Yhereas, in nine cases out of ten, if not in ninety-nine out of a. lmndred, the husband and fa.ther who dies bankrupt, lca.ves his wife ami children an inheritance of "misery and toil.'" And yet tho present social system has continued for some time past, and seems likely to con· tinue for some time to come, spite of the evils incident to it. Should it be said that the reference, in tho case of tho "misery'' spoken of in the quotation, is not to the change of masters, but to the breaking up of sla.vc families, then I answer, that these separations arc very rare, and that the aggregate of suffering from this source in free families left destitute, is incomparably greater than that aggregate in slave families. nut of this, more by and by. UNCLB TOM'S CABIN. "Nevertheless, as this young m:tn," &c. (2.) Let us make a slight change in the sentence:-" Nevertheless, as this young man was> in the eye of the bw, not a. ma.n, but an infant,* rtll these superior qutdifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, nr~rrow-mindcd, tyra.nnical father." ~1 hnt there are such fathers, cJ.nnot be denied; and that they arc far more numerous in proportion to the whole number, than arc the mn,stcrs of the like chn.ractcr, will be readily believed, when we consider that the master is necessarily a man of some property, and therefore, presumably, of some standing in the community, and consequently, with a. chm·acter to maintain ttmong his fellow masters, and with his neighbours in general; while brgc numbers of fathers nrc of the offscourings of society. Yet no one proposes to t:.~ko the child from the father,-cvcn the "vulgar, narrowminded, tyrannical" father,-cxecpt in cases of cruelty; and tho cruelty must be manifest and marked, for the law will not weigh tho conduct of the father, any more than tha.t of tho master," in golden scales." (See Appendix, E. 2, STATE vs. REED. :LJiarginal note.) Should it be said that the father has the control of the child only till he is twenty-one, while the master, ordinarHy, has the perpetual control of the slave, I answer, lie who shapes the character of the chilt.l, during the first twenty-one years of his life, shapes, nine times out of ten, his after destiny. 'l1he child of a "vulgar, narrowminded, tyrnnnica.l" father, may grow up to be a good citizen, but, ten to one, he will be worse than his father before him. "It's a free country, sir; the man's mine, and I do what I please with Lim,-that"s it!"' (3.) Well, then, suppose you kill him and cat him, as tho master docs his slave in Africa. In that case, I rather *In law, a mnu is an infant, so long ns he is under twonty·ono years of age. D |