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SALE AND SEPARATION
OF A FAMILY
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A LATE traveller at the
Cape of Good Hope, says, in a letter to a friend,
"Having learned that there was to be a sale of cattle,
farm-stock, &c, by auction, at a veld-cornet's in the
vicinity, we halted our waggon for the purpose of
procuring fresh oxen. Among the stock of the farm
was a female slave and her three children. The
farmers examined them, as if they had been so many head
of cattle. They were sold separately, and to
different purchasers. The tears, the anxiety, the
anguish of the mother, while she met the gaze of the
multitude, eyed the different countenances of the
bidders, or cast a heart-rending look upon the children;
and the simplicity and touching sorrow of the poor young
ones, while they clung to their distracted parent,
wiping their eyes, and half-concealing their faces,
contrasted with the marked insensibility, and jocular
countenances of the spectators, furnished a striking
commentary on the miseries of slavery, and its debasing
effects upon the hearts of its abettors. While the
woman was in this distressed situation, she was asked,
'Can you feed sheep?' Her reply was so indistinct,
that it escaped me, but it was probably in the negative,
for her purchaser rejoined, in a loud and harsh voice,
Then I will teach you with the sjamhoe,' a whip
made of the rhinoceros hide. The mother and her
three children were literally torn from each other." -
New Monthly Magazine.
No matter, under whatever specious term it disguises
itself, slavery is hideous. Man held as a thing, and
sold with as little concern, and often in the same lot
as a Berkshire sow, or a Sussex boar! This is the
indignity put upon our kind - an outrage committed on
the world's liberty, which no sophistry can disguise, no
expediency can palliate, and no language can hold up to
sufficient execration.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 41.
Sold by W. and F. G. CASH, 5,
Bishopsgate Street, London; and by JANE JOWETT, Friends'
Meeting Yard, Leeds, at 1s. 2. per 100.
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