The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1843-11-16
WHITE SLAVES.

m WHITE SLAVES.
The friends of humanity" Of the present day run
through the Antilles they ransack India, they scour
the coasts Of America to discover and deuoupce the
enormities attendant upon the employment of ''bIack
slaves" They have happily, it true, induced bet
ter and sincerer men to make the dealing and even
the property 10 black slaves felony and they keep the
attention OF the civilized world awakened to their
proceedings by constant appeals 10 the public, in
which facts are too often perverted TO use the
mdest term) 70 the purpose or substantiating their
own exaggerated views illustrating their iavorite
theories. But in the mean time, they fall OF from
the at least necessary the ut least AZ benefciept
works OF abang cruelty, restraining avarice, and ex
posing heartless selfshness, as practised at home
at their doors, by their own hearths.-
There, the children of labor, the old and the young
but especially the latter, their own compatros or
native to other European soils, may languish, unpi
tied and unrecked Of amid the incessant tolls Of the
most helpless and ill-reQuted labor There, with
exhausted strength enfeebled constitutions, impaired
tacuties--in the EXTREMIST physical desttuton, In
the most hopeless and rayless atmosphere of misery
the male and female artisans, who minister TO The
caPrices Of fashion or the demands of luxury, are
permitted to lnger on, overworked under.fed, de-
frauded rather than paid, till crime, or DEATH or
diocy anticipates the crisis which starvation would
otherwise have cruelty protracted This is the bitter
lot of some thousands among us who are tho servants
of our mners, dress and corsetmakers, tailors
shomemakers, and other traders, who, in too MANY
instances avail themselves Of the existi, COMPETE
ton in the market of manual labor to raise the isrg
est amount Of profit on the business they DO in utter
disregard of the Wholesale destruction Of human fe
the blightng of human health and hope and happi-
ness which what is technically termed their "mode
of doing business" is hour after hour entalng. But
we are reminded that there is yet another class of
Observation-Disclosures too-whose lot if il be not
more severe, it seems to il would be less difficult
to alleviate, in future, by Of ordinary police
regulations thut might efectually prevent the ex-
posure OF further victims to the hard destiny
We speak of the numerous itinerant bcggars for
the most part Italian boys, who are kidnapped in
their own country and brought over to this By do.
signing adventurers under plausible promises OF en-
abling them to realize handsome sums Of money
wherewith they may afterwards return to improve
their fortunes at home It that there are vag-
abonds who have speculated successfully in this
nearous system of deception and treachery that they
themselves have returned to Italy with $500 or f6OO
in their pockets, leaving the unhappy dupes of their
cunning and reckessness to starve here for want Of
employment, to be arrested and imprisoned as va
grants, or to realize their previous notions of British
hospitality in the dreary pureus and on the attenua-
ted fare offs parish workhouse At this very moment
there resides somewhere in the vicinity Of Hatton
garden one Of these boy-and organ importers who
has kenne-t is literally SUCH and nothing better
of fifteen or sixteen "ltalian boys" whom he has
persuaded to quit their sunny homes and come over
with him hither. He keeps them, we are informed,
in one apartment straw-strewed, which is their DOR
But neither the broken sleep, nor the more broken
food nor the hard repose of even this fororn asylum,
may be purchased by any Of them, until he has
first paid over to the unfeeling whpper-in by whom
they have been purloined three shngs as the days
earnings Of the miserable organ or the exhibition Of
the white mouse or the raccoon which has been
fded to him for this purpose. The owner feeds
them such refuse can be most cheaply pur.
chased, at the estimated cost Of about S.. per head
per week. Whether the unhappy boy has to pay
~. hc1t lI,t:o
tai of 80 day to his cruel employer does appear.
Should it be his fortune to earn in one day than
three shillings, we may presume (perhaps, indeed,
against hope) that the surplus becomes his own Now
let us see how the account stands with the whole
sale g white SLAYER" whom they serve The total Of
his expenses for the sixteen boys may take it Tin
GLIDING rent of room lofty at S. per head per
week, "a S. His earnings from them, at IS. per
day, will be GA s., leaving clear weekly profit Of
4iU IS. Other white slavers it is understood do
much better than this; and hitherto many having
been permitted by our police to accumulate by these
detesable means ample provision for the remain
der of their lives. have left forever but not with
out memorials of their successful practices and
slumberng humanity. The poor-rates have been
finally burdened with the temporary support out
door relief of the pless and defrauded dupcs whom
they have in all cases declined to carry away with
them. We call these things outrages public de-
cency, on Christian feeling, on social charity. And
yet the continuance Of these practices the identity
of the slave masters the localities where they re-
side, await the returns to be brought into them by
their victims /; the BRUTAL violence and crueles to
which they subject the unhappy boys who have not
succeeded in realizing the sum they would snatch
from them the palpable mfraction which their daily
occupation involves of the laws that restrain or pro
hbt mendacity in our strcets-thesc all facts
torious to the constabulary and familiar TO the
gstrates Of the metropolis. On fine afternoons, once
or twice week, we may see, in the Kent and Dover
Roads, string of these deuded lads, following with
aching feet but faces beamng with hope, the gaunt
kdnapper, who strides along with his single rank and
file at his heels to the suburban den TO which he is
about to introduce them, coolly calculating the gains
he will reap out of the TOLL the suffering the i'll
usage Of his followers. Surely the Poor law Com
mssioncrs ought to look to this infamy, and adopt
pressive measures without delay, TO prevent, at any
rate, the influx of foreign begyars, and to save us
from so unnecessary an addition to the burden al
ready to be sustained in providing for the relief Of
our own poor.-London Sun.
MoupNruI CAIaMrry-XNe learn from tho Rur-