Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/104

Rh parties half a day before he declared it openly in court. Could Kane or Curtis do worse? I do not find that they have ever done so bad. Does Boston teem with Epsoms and Dudleys, the vermin of the law P Does New England spawn Jefeeyses and Scroggses, whom we supposed impossible—fictitious characters too bad to be?

Look at the Marshal's conduct. Of his previous character I say nothing. But his agents arrested Mr. Burns of a false charge; threatened violence if he should cry out; they kept him in secret. Nobody came nigh unto him.

The trial was unfairly conducted on the Marshal's part. The public was excluded from the Court House. His servants lined the stairways, insulting the people. Southerners were freely admitted, but Northern gentlemen kept out. Rude, coarse, and insolent fellows found no check. Clergymen and lawyers were turned back, and Southern students of law let in. Two gentlemen were refused admission; but when one declared he was from Virginia, the other from South Carolina, they were both admitted on the instant. The whole Court House seemed to be the property of the slave power.

He crowded the Court House with soldiers. Some of them were drunk, and charged bayonet upon the counsel and witnesses for Bums, and thrust them away. He employed base men for his guard. I never saw such a motley crew as this kidnapper's gang collected together, save in the darkest places of London and Paris, whither I went to see how low humanity might go down, and yet bear the semblance of man. He raked the kennels of Boston. He dispossessed the stews, bawding the courts with unwonted infamy. He gathered the spoils of brothels; prodigals not penitent, who upon harlots had wasted their substance in riotous living; pimps, gamblers, the mccubm of Slavery; men which the gorged gaols had cast out into the streets scarred with infamy; fighters, drunkards, public brawlers; convicts that had served out their time, waiting for a second conviction; men whom the subtlety of counsel, or the charity of the gallows, had left unhanged. "No eye hath seen such scarecrows." The youngest of the Police Judges found ten of his constituents there. Gaoler Andrews, it is said, recognised forty of his customers among them. It is