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Show • 19G NOTES ON detained there some days, and having nothing else to occupy me, I attended a murder trial that was then going on in one of the courts. I forget the names of the parties, but these, as well as the particulars of the case will be found in the newspapers of the day. The evidence was, that the prisoner, after beating and abusing his wife, so that the neighbours heard her cries and shrieks, tiecl her in a chai1· and set fire to the house and bnrned Iter up in it, and the jury brought in a. ver dict of murder in the second degtee !* 'Vhat sort of la.ws must those be, under which such a verdict was possible? Very naughty, you will say. 0 no! It wasn't a black man that was tortured to death; it was only a white woman! only a wife! that's all! But why did not the neighbours interfere, as you think the people of Raleigh should have interfered in the case of :Mirna? Ah ! ~Irs. Stowe, it is very dangerous- to come between husband un(l wife. If the "supposed case," two or three pages back, the " case not to be found in any of the books," were to become an actual one, I should be very loth indeed to interfere, on the score of safety to my own skin; for as Marks says, (voL i. p. 282,) "It's the best I've got, and I don't know why I shouldn't saYo it." But this vcnlict was in "repudiating" Pennsylvania. " 'Vas ever such a trirLl held in England as that in Virgini:~., of Sourn>:lt vs. TJlll Com!ONWEAJ.TH ?" (p. lOG.) 0 yes, ~irs. Stowe, no longer ngo than lnst February, as you will sec, if you turn to the extract from tho London Guan1ian, (Appendix, K. 3. (7 .).) You will sec by that, that while according to a Virginia jury, torturing and burning a black man to ileath is murder in the second clt:•grec, according to an English jury, torturing and burning a white child to death is only manslaughter! Verily, if the English jury • Recollect that "Lc:::;rec is chained in frca Stn.tc~.'1 )Irs. Stowe says so, (p. -W,) anrl she l-lwws! UNCLE TOM'S CABIN • 107 w~ro .in the right, Souther wafl n 't, so far out of tho wny in thmkmg that the verdict in his cr~sc ougltt to have been "manslaughter'' too. ' Vc come now to the suLject of the Outlawr!J of negroes in North Carolina . ~'he following is the la.w 011 the subject, as cited by Mrs. Sto11·c (Key, p. 83) from the Hcvisc<l Statutes, chn,p. cxi. sec. 22 : "'rhercas, MANY TDIES slaves ·run away and lie out, !tid a~U~ lll1·Jcing in 8lt'amps, u•ooJs, and otftcr obscw·e ZJlafNS, ktlhng cattle aml hog~, anti committing other injuries to the inhabitants of this State; in all such cases, upon intelligence of :my sli1\·c or slaves lying out as a.foresaiJ, any two justices of the pence for tho county wherein such slave Ol' slaves is or arc supposed to lurk or do mischief, shall, anJ they arc hereby empowered and required to issue proclamation ngainst. such sla.rc or slaves (reciting l1i~ or their names, ana the name or names of the owner or O\rners if known ) thereby requiring him or them, and crery of the:n, forthwi:h to surrender him or themselves ; and also to empower and require the sheriff' of the said county to take such power with him as he shall tltink fit anJ necessary for going in search and pursuit of, and efl'cctually apprehending, such outlying shwe or slaves; which proclamation shall be published at the door of the court-house, and at such other places as sai(t justices .shall direct. And if any sbve or slaves against whom proclamntion hath Leen thus issued stay out, and do not immediately return home, it shall be bwful for nny person or persons whatsocnr to kill anJ Jcstroy such slave or: sl:J.Yes by such 1.VO!JS and means as he shall t!tinlc jit, wahout accusation or impeachment of any crime for the same." Kow wha.t sort of persons arc these outlaws, :tn(l what is the reason tha,t Korth Carolina alone has sud1 a. statute? Head the following from Number Tl1irtccn of the Letters on the South, before refciTCLl to, anJ you will sec: ],f |