In order to arrive at a fair conception of slavery as it existed in antiquity, it is necessary to clear our minds once for all of prepossessions created by the conditions of slavery in America or other countries, where the slave and the slave owner have been distinguished by such marked racial differences as exist between the white man and the coloured man, between the highly civilized man and the savage. Even in the department of negro slavery, as practised in America, there are two sides to the question, and _Tom Cringle’s Log_ must be set against _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. Mr. T. Booker Washington, an American negro who has done perhaps more for the emancipated black men than any living man, himself born a slave, refuses to join in the wholesale condemnation of American slave owners; to him the mischief of the institution lay less in its injurious effects upon the negro than upon the white man, who despised wholesome industry, and tended to become useless rather than cruel. The political student has to approach the subject without prejudice, and investigate all the consequences and accompaniments of slavery, not only some of them. It is further necessary in dealing with such a question to discount the antipathy to pain and discomfort which is so marked a feature of modern life. Granted that under certain circumstances slavery resulted in a vast amount of hideous suffering, still slavery was not the only condition in ancient life, or mediaeval life, or even modern life, that has resulted in suffering. Wherever a man finds himself in an irresponsible position towards a number of his fellow creatures, wherever a society or the rulers of a society live in terror of any section of that society whether slave or free, there is always the probability of great cruelty. If all the pain and sorrows of humanity from the beginning of time until now could be reckoned up and estimated, and assigned to their various causes, it is questionable whether slavery would show the blackest record.