given to it, which forces the wire sharply against the arm, causing it
to fit tightly, often painfully, and forms a smaller ring at the
outside. By this smaller ring a score of bondsmen may be seen strung
together with a rope.

To speak disrespectfully of the prince or his council, or of the nobles,
or of religion, to go out of the precincts without permission, to trade
without license, to omit to salute the great, all these and a thousand
others are crimes deserving of the brazen bracelet. Were a man to study
all day what he must do, and what he must not do, to escape servitude,
it would not be possible for him to stir one step without becoming
forfeit! And yet they hypocritically say that these things are done for
the sake of public morality, and that there are not slaves (not
permitting the word to be used), and no man was ever sold.

It is, indeed, true that no man is sold in open market, he is leased
instead; and, by a refined hypocrisy, the owner of slaves cannot sell
them to another owner, but he can place them in the hands of the notary,
presenting them with their freedom, so far as he is concerned. The
notary, upon payment of a fine from the purchaser, transfers them to
him, and the larger part of the fine goes to the prince. Debt alone
under their laws must crowd the land with slaves, for, as wages are
scarcely known, a child from its birth is often declared to be in debt.
For its nourishment is drawn from its mother, and the wretched mother is
the wife of a retainer who is fed by his lord. To such a degree is this
tyranny carried! If any owe a penny, his doom is sealed; he becomes a
bondsman, and thus the estates of the nobles are full of men who work
during their whole lives for the profit of others. Thus, too, the woods
are filled with banditti, for those who find an opportunity never fail
to escape, notwithstanding the hunt that is invariably made for them,
and the cruel punishment that awaits recapture. And numbers, foreseeing
that they must become bondsmen, before they are proclaimed forfeit steal
away by night, and live as they may in the forests.

How, then, does any man remain free? Only by the favour of the nobles,
and only that he may amass wealth for them. The merchants, and those who
have license to trade by land or water, are all protected by some noble
house, to whom they pay heavily for permission to live in their own
houses. The principal tyrant is supported by the nobles, that they in
the