"The captain informed us that the vessel had been forbidden to enter the port with a fugitive slave on board. He must discharge her cargo where she lay, and return, with all possible dispatch, to Norfolk. Accordingly, we came to anchor below the city, and the passengers were sent up in a boat, I said to the captain, 'There is a great ado about a poor helpless child.' He replied, 'The laws must be obeyed.' I could not help exclaiming, 'Is this the land of boasted freedom?' Here was an innocent child treated like a felon; manacled, and sent back to slavery and the lash; deprived of the fostering care which even the brute is allowed to exercise toward its young. The slender boy was seeking the protection of a father. Did humanity aid him? No. Humanity was prevented by the law, which consigns one portion of the people to the control and brutality of the other. Humanity can only look on and weep. 'The laws must be obeyed.'" Legislators of Massachusetts! suppose for one moment that poor abused boy was your own little Johnny or Charley, what would you say of the law _then_? Truly, if we have no feeling for the children of _others_, we deserve to have our own children reserved for such a fate; and I sometimes think it is the only lesson that will teach the North to respect justice and humanity. It is not long ago, since a free colored man in Baltimore was betrothed to a young slave of eighteen, nearly white, and very beautiful. If they married, their children would be slaves, and he would have no power to protect his handsome wife from any outrages an unprincipled master, or his sons, might choose to perpetrate. Therefore, he wisely resolved to marry in a land of freedom. He placed her in a box, with a few holes in it, small enough not to attract attention. With tender care, he packed hay around her, that she might not be bruised when thrown from the cars with other luggage. The anxiety of the lover was dreadful. Still more terrible was it, when waiting for her in Philadelphia, he found that the precious box had not arrived. They had happened to have an unusual quantity of freight, and the baggage-master, after turning the box over, in rough, railroad fashion had concluded to leave it till the next train. The poor girl was thrown into a most uneasy position, without the power of changing it. She was nearly suffocated for want of air; the hay-seed fell into her eyes and nostrils, and it required almost superhuman efforts to refrain from sneezing or choking. Added to this was terror lest her absence be discovered, and the heavy box examined. In that state of mind and body, she remained more than two hours, in the hot sun on the railroad platform. At last, the box arrived in Philadelphia, and the lover and his friends conveyed it to a place of safety as speedily as possible. Those who were present at the opening, say it was the most impressive scene they ever witnessed. Silently, almost breathlessly, they drew out the nails, expecting to find a corpse.