oved
that they could raise the tune most readily; and the would-be
man-stealer was only too happy to march to its measures out of the
city, without his booty, and possessed of a whole skin. Mr. Jankins,
the object of Butman, the kidnapper's cupidity, during these
intervening thirty years, has continued to live in this city, a
respectable and respected citizen; and has seen his children in the
highest schools of the city. One, having graduated from the High
School, is now in the Normal School. What a comment this, on the times
when, in this _Christian_ land, men and women were imprisoned for
teaching black people how to read,--the Bible even.

I doubt whether the people of Worcester were the very strictest
interpreters of the law in the days when the life of John Brown was
in the balance. Of the technicalities of his offence it is not ours to
judge. The people of the North who had made haste to rid themselves of
slavery, had viewed for years the aggressive unrest of the South.
While civilized countries other than ours had forever abolished the
wretched system, our country, led by its Southern minority, had again
and again done its best to bolster and uphold it. The war with Mexico,
the annexation of Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, were only successive sops thrown to the
insatiable monster. The repeal of the Compromise opened the Territory
of Kansas to both Slavery and Anti-Slavery, and henceforth
Massachusetts speaks with no uncertain voice. John Brown and Charles
Sumner simultaneously spring into renown and immortality. Both of Bay
State antecedents, their history is largely hers. One on the plains of
Kansas fights for what he believes to be the right. His own blood and
that of his sons flow in behalf of oppressed humanity. Border ruffians
are driven back and a Free State Constitution adopted. Sumner, from
his place in the United Sates Senate, boldly proclaims his sentiments
on "The Crime against Kansas," and by an illustrious scion of the
Southern aristocracy is stricken down in a manner which "even thieves
and cut-throats would despise." The contest was on,--any pause
thereafter was only a temporary lull. In the language of New York's
most distinguished Senator, it was "Irrepressible." John Brown had
repeatedly led parties of slaves from Missouri to Kansas, and made of
them free men. He contemplated other and grander strokes against the
peculiar institution. In his singleness