The difficulty of recovering slave property in the North had been considerable for some years, and it was steadily growing greater. The uncertainty of reclamation in the large number of cases made the whole business unprofitable and undesirable for slave-owners. A writer in the _North American Review_ for July, 1850, says, "Though thousands of slaves have escaped by crossing the Ohio River, or Mason and Dixon's line, during the last five years, no attempt has been made to reclaim them in more than one case out of a thousand."[716] If one takes this statement as meant to convey merely the idea that the number of pursuits was extremely small in proportion to the number of escapes there will be no difficulty in accepting it, for probably this was the fact down to 1850; and the explanation of it, so far as can be gathered from the lips of Southern men, is to be found in the strong probability of failure in undertaking these costly enterprises. Thus Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in his argument in favor of a new fugitive slave law, declared that, under the existing conditions, "you may as well go down into the sea and endeavor to recover from his native element a fish which has escaped from you, as expect to recover a ... fugitive. Every difficulty is thrown in your way by the population.... There are armed mobs, rescues. This is the real state of things."[717] [716] F. Bowen on "Extradition of Fugitive Slaves," Vol. LXXI, p. 252 _et seq._ [717] _Congressional Globe_, Thirty-first Congress, First Session, p. 1583; also M. G. McDougall, _Fugitive Slaves_, p. 31.