Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/165

 of them the kindest and best of masters, beloved beyond measure by then- so-called slaves, who, seeing themselves and their institutions wantonly maligned, became all the more resolutely determined to oppose any reform (prior to this numbers of the Southerners were themselves con- sidering how emancipation could be gradually brought about). It grievously inflamed the righteous indignation of the New Englanders, and a certain better-minded section of the other northern States — and it led to John Brown and his marching soul and all the ^'battle, murder, and sudden death " that followed. You will be told that the North and South fought over the tariff, and so a large section of the northern States unquestionably did, but these would never have ventured to provoke or accept (for this is a moot point) a civil war, but for the enthusiasm of the honest anti- slavery party. But for " Uncle Tom's Cabin," I fully believe that slavery would have been abolished before now, and without any civil war.

But works of fiction attacking social evils always, it may be said, exaggerate the case, and Charles Reade and Charles Dickens will be pointed to as having equally picked out individual instances of wrong and so presented them as to make them appear the necessary and inevitable results of systems which, as a matter of fact, by no means invariably led to such serious consequences.

But even if such exaggeration be permissible in works of fiction, and if this high colouring does really do good in the long run (which is at least an arguable point) by attracting and concentrating attention, it certainly does not do this, in my opinion, in the case of grave prosaic State papers, like yours, and rightly or wrongly, my experience and inquiries lead me to believe that in your righteous indignation against wrong and desire to get rid of what is evil, you have depicted that evil in blacker colours than the facts of the case, taken as a whole, really warrant.

As regards the question of enforced widowhood I have in limine a somewhat similar objection to take. It is productive of great evils, much unhappiness, much demoralization. It