nce he professes, he is aiding and
abetting the commission of the cruelest possible form of murder on
many thousands of persons yearly, for the sake simply of putting money
into the pockets of the landlords. I felt this evil so strongly that I
bought, in the worst part of London, one freehold and one leasehold
property, consisting of houses inhabited by the lowest poor; in order
to try what change in their comfort and habits I could effect by
taking only a just rent, but that firmly. The houses of the leasehold
pay me five per cent.; the families that used to have one room in them
have now two; and are more orderly and hopeful besides; and there is a
surplus still on the rents they pay after I have taken my five per
cent., with which, if all goes well, they will eventually be able to
buy twelve years of the lease from me. The freehold pays three per
cent., with similar results in the comfort of the tenant. This is
merely an example of what might be done by firm State action in such
matters.

[A] See Sec. 156.

149. Next, of wholly unjustifiable rents. These are for things which
are not, and which it is criminal to consider as, personal or
exchangeable property. Bodies of men, land, water, and air, are the
principal of these things.

Parenthetically, may I ask you to observe, that though a fearless
defender of some forms of slavery, I am no defender of the slave
_trade_. It is by a blundering confusion of ideas between _governing_
men, and _trading in_ men, and by consequent interference with the
restraint, instead of only with the sale, that most of the great
errors in action have been caused among the emancipation men. I am
prepared, if the need be clear to my own mind, and if the power is in
my hands, to throw men into prison, or any other captivity--to bind
them or to beat them--and force them, for such periods as I may judge
necessary, to any kind of irksome labor: and on occasion of desperate
resistance, to hang or shoot them. But I will not _sell_ them.

150. Bodies of men, or women, then (and much more, as I said before,
their souls), must not be bought or sold. Neither must land, nor
water, nor air, these being the necessary sustenance of men's bodies
and souls.

Yet all these may, on certain terms, be bound, or secured in
possession, to particular persons under certain conditions. For
instance, it may be proper, at a certain time, to give a man
permission to possess land, as you give him permission t