Many were the inducements to practise espionage on abolitionists. Large sums were offered for the capture of fugitives, and rewards were offered also for the arrest and delivery south of Mason and Dixon's line of certain abolitionists, who were well-enough known to have the hatred of many Southerners. "At an anti-slavery meeting of the citizens of Sardinia and vicinity, held on November 21, 1838, a committee of respectable citizens presented a report, accompanied with affidavits in support of its declarations, stating that for more than a year past there had been an unusual degree of hatred manifested by the slave-hunters and slaveholders towards the abolitionists of Brown County, and that rewards varying from $500 to $2,500 had been repeatedly offered by different persons for the abduction or assassination of the Rev. John B. Mahan; and rewards had also been offered for Amos Pettijohn, William A. Frazier and Dr. Isaac M. Beck, of Sardinia, the Rev. John Rankin and Dr. Alexander Campbell, of Ripley, William McCoy, of Russellville, and citizens of Adams County."[125] A resolution was offered in the Maryland Legislature, in January, 1860, proposing a reward for the arrest of Thomas Garrett, of Wilmington, for "stealing" slaves.[126] It is perhaps an evidence of the extraordinary caution and shrewdness employed by managers of the Road generally that so many of them escaped without suffering the penalties of the law or the inflictions of private vengeance. [125] _History of Brown County, Ohio_, p. 314. [126] _The New Reign of Terror in the Slaveholding States_, for 1859-1860 (_Anti-Slavery Tracts_, No. 4, New Series), pp. 49, 50. Slave-owners occasionally tried to find out the secrets of an underground station or of a route by visiting various localities in disguise. A Kentucky slaveholder clad in the Friends' peculiar garb went to the house of John Charles, a Quaker of Richmond, Indiana, and meeting a son of Mr. Charles, accosted him with the words, "Well, sir, my little mannie, hasn't thee father gone to Canada with some niggers?" Young Charles quickly perceived the disguise, and pointing his finger at the man declared him to be a "wolf in sheep's clothing."[127] About the year 1840 there came into Cass County, Indiana, a man from Kentucky by the name of Carpenter, who professed to be an anti-slavery lecturer and an agent for certain anti-slavery papers. He visited the abolitionists and seemed zealous in the cause. In this way he learned the whereabouts of seven fugitives that had arrived in the neighborhood from Kentucky a few weeks before. He sent word to their masters, and in due time they were all seized, but had not been taken far before the neighborhood was aroused, masters and victims were overtaken and carried to the county-seat, a trial was procured, and the slaves were again set free. [127] Letter of Mrs. Mary C. Thorne, Selma, Clark Co., O., March 3, 1892. John Charles was an uncle of Mrs. Thorne.