kind of free service procurable on any terms, no better than that which Mrs Stowe and all other writers have described as existing in America, emancipation would be a decidedly unpopular proposal in these Islands. Is it possible to doubt that? Look at the history of the Factories Bill, opposed, defeated, and evaded in every possible way, by the very same men who proclaim themselves as the warmest friends of the negro. They thought it as nothing that the bodies and souls of the young children within their factories should be distorted and uncared for, whilst at the same time they were ready to expend their gratuitous sympathy on the American slave. But we shall not refer solely to them. Our remark applies to every class; and we put the question to the ladies of this country, from the Duchess of Sutherland downwards, whether, if they had been born slave-owners, they would at once have relinquished their control over those whom they could treat kindly, and whose affections they could secure, to pass to a system which would have sent them down from the drawing-room to slave themselves in the pantry or the kitchen? Is that an argument for slavery? Heaven forbid! We intend nothing of the kind, and should be very sorry to see our meaning so twisted and distorted. But it is an argument of the very strongest description against republicanism and republican institutions, and against those absurd notions of equality which, under philosophical cover, are making such rapid progress in this country. Slavery, we are convinced, has in all times existed rather as a social necessity, than from any abstract wish in man to own property in man. The idea is of itself repugnant. Not much more than a hundred years ago, the Earls of Sutherland were, in effect, considerable serf-owners. The patriarchal rule of the chief was more despotic than is the sway of the proprietor of slaves in America; for if the Mhor-ar-chat, which we apprehend to be the most ancient designation of the family, had desired Dugald or Donald to pitch his recusant brother into the loch, with some hundred-weight of granite attached to his neck by a plaid, “nae doubt the laird’s pleasure suld be obeyed.” Fortunately we are past that phase of existence. The feudal system has decayed and died, which we are not by any means sorry for; but, on the other hand, we have not yet arrived at the point when the descendants of Dugald and Donald consider themselves as ranking in the same degree of the social scale with the great Lady of Dunrobin. Feudal service has given way to a better-ordered, more convenient, and more profitable system. But still, among us, the gradations of rank are recognised and acted on; and it is because the feelings and institutions of the country are essentially aristocratic, that our domestic arrangements and social intercourse are so decidedly superior to those of America, or indeed of any other country in the world. We have equal