If British ministers could thus view the subject and be guilty of the injustice they perpetrated in Miss Murray's case, what could be expected of the great mass of British readers? It is hard to conceive how the glory or prosperity of a nation could be advanced by giving currency to fallacies, or suppressing the truth in regard to the actual condition of African slavery in the Southern states. It would seem that as Great Britain had had so much to do with fostering the institution in those states, it would be rather gratifying, than otherwise, to its ministers and its people, to know that the descendants of those who had been ravished from their native country by the cupidity of their predecessors, were in a contented and comfortable condition. But such was not then "the policy of the government" and perhaps the philanthropic disciple of Exeter Hall who callously passed by the misery, want and immorality at her own door in the great city of London, while she shed tears over the imaginary woes pictured by Miss Beecher, would have been equally as indignant as the British ministers with Miss Murray for attempting to disabuse her of the delusion which caused those tears to flow. Such is, and perhaps ever will be, the character of human philanthropy, that it troubles itself more about the sufferings which exist a long way off or only in imagination, than those which are before its eyes. One weeps over the trials of the hero or heroine in a novel or a play, while we pass the miserable child of want and sin in the street with perfect indifference. If slavery did not have its evils and its wrongs, it would not be a human institution, and as long as "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," so long will evils and wrongs exist in every relation of human society. These exist in the relation of governor and governed, parent and child, husband and wife, master and servant, employer and employed, neighbor and neighbor, and are not excluded even from the church. It is not pretended therefore that some masters did not abuse their servants, but these were rare instances, more perhaps than in any other relation of like, and if for no other reason, the great mass of masters were induced to treat their slaves well, because it was their interest to do so. Let any one compare the condition of the African in his native land, with that of the slaves of the South before the violent abolition of slavery, and then say whether that institution, which had produced such a vast improvement in his condition was so great a wrong after all.[B] [Footnote B: Note--Professor Draper, in his "History of the American Civil War" thus represents the condition of the negro in his native land. "The Negro in Africa."