Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/125

 better off than those who are employed in field labor. They are better fed, and better clothed, and their work is much lighter. They are sure of the crumbs that fall from their master's table; and as the master's eyes and those of his guests, would be offended by a display of dirt and rags in the dining room, house servants are comfortably clothed, not so much, it is true, on their own account, as for the gratification of their owner's vanity. As it is a matter of ostentation to have a house full of servants, the labor becomes light when divided among so many. Sufficient food, comfortable clothing, and light work are not to be despised; but the circumstance which principally contributes to make the condition of the house servant more tolerable than that of the field hand, is of a different description. Men, and especially women and children, cannot have any thing much about them, be it a dog, a cat, or even a slave, without insensibly contracting some interest in it and regard for it; and it thus happens that a family servant often becomes quite a favorite, and is at length regarded with a feeling that bears some faint and distant resemblance to family affection.

This is the most tolerable — in fact, the only tolerable point of view — in which slavery can be made to present itself; and it has been, by steadily fixing their eyes on a few cases of this sort, and as steadily closing them to all its intrinsic horrors and enormities, that some bold sophists have mustered courage to make the eulogium of slavery.

Yet this best condition of a slave, — that I mean of a household servant, — is often, almost too miserable for endurance. If there are kind masters and good natured mistresses, it happens too frequently, that the master is a capricious tyrant, and the mistress a fretful scold. The poor servant is exposed, every hour of his life, to a course of harsh rebukes, and peevish chidings, which are always threatening to end in the torture of the lash, and which to a person of any spirit or sensibility, are more annoying than even the lash itself. And all this is without hope or chance of remedy. The master and the mistress indulge their bad humor without restraint. No fear of ‘warning' puts any curb upon them. The slave is theirs; and they can treat