erfection and beauty, and her darling boy as a little angel.
Maid-servants occupy a position in Southern families far above that of
any other class of servants; but little below the white members of the
family. I resided forty-four years in the Southern States, and it is
with pride that I record the fact, that a Southern gentleman would
dispose of anything--everything--carriages, horses, stocks, tenements
and lands, before he would dispose of such servants as Uncle Tom, and
his wife's maid-servant's child, and thereby break his wife's heart.
No! far be it from Southern men; their wives are their all; and far be
it from them, to say or do aught in opposition to the will of their
wives, anything that will deeply mortify or afflict them. A man would
be hooted from genteel society in the Southern States, for such an
ignoble act. Whatever the faults of Southern men may be, they feel
themselves bound to treat their wives with consideration, respect and
kindness. But I must return to Eliza and her boy. Eliza, overhearing
the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, on the night after the
interview between Shelby and Haley, she cautiously and quietly takes
her boy out of the bed, and elopes. She hastens with all possible
speed to the State of Ohio. Haley returns to Shelby's on the
succeeding morning for the purpose of taking possession of Tom, and
Eliza's child; but Eliza having decamped with the child, he and a
couple of Shelby's negro men go in pursuit of her. They overtook her
at the river; and Mrs. Stowe tells us, that she fled precipitately
across the river on floating fragments of ice, with her boy in her
arms! She tells us, that the ice was floating, and that a boat was
expected to pass over the river that night. Was ever a more glaring
falsehood penned. As well might she have told us, that Eliza walked
over the river on the water, with a boy who was probably five or six
years of age, in her arms! How inconsistent! How foolish! How
superlatively ridiculous are such tales!! It is enough; I need not
wade through the entire work, in order to show the falsity of Mrs.
Stowe's tale.
She has calumniated her countrymen, and the slander has gone with
electric speed on the pinions of the press, to the ends of the earth.
Her country lies bleeding at her feet; its institutions totter. But
ah! if she can but luxuriate in her ill-gotten gains, but little does
she care what becomes of her country. She, truly, has been well paid
for
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