in the majority of cases gladly
abandon, and render the connection between them indissoluble. There is
far less of the interest and attachment in his relation to his employer,
which so often exists between the master and the slave, and mitigates
the condition of the latter. An intelligent English traveler has
characterized as the most miserable and degraded of all beings, "a
masterless slave." And is not the condition of the laboring poor of
other countries too often that of masterless slaves! Take the following
description of a _free_ laborer, no doubt highly colored, quoted by the
author to whom I have before referred.

"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping
shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and stupid, whose
premature wrinkles and furtive glance, tell of misery and degradation?
That is an English peasant or pauper, for the words are synonymous. His
sire was a pauper, and his mother's milk wanted nourishment. From
infancy his food has been bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels
the pains of unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half
clothed, and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his
scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him with the
weather. He is married, of course; for to this he would have been driven
by the poor laws, even if he had been, as he never was, sufficiently
comfortable and prudent to dread the burden of a family. But though
instinct and the overseer have given him a wife, he has not tasted the
highest joys of husband and father. His partner and his little ones
being like himself, often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without
aid, and always sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing;
so, to use his own expression, he hates the sight of them, and resorts
to his hovel, only because a hedge affords less shelter from the wind
and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his family, which means to
join them in consuming an allowance from the parish, he frequently
conspires with his wife to get that allowance increased, or prevent its
being diminished. This brings beggary, trickery, and quarrelling, and
ends in settled craft. Though he have the inclination, he wants the
courage to become, like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or
smuggler on a large scale, but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his
children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner toward his
great neighbors,