Escaped from the Father of the Fugitive Slave Law--Senator Mason.
It was highly pleasing to have a visit from a "chattel" belonging to the
leading advocate of the infamous Fugitive Slave Bill. He was hurriedly
interviewed for the sake of reliable information.
That William possessed a fair knowledge of slave life under the Senator
there was no room to doubt, although incidents of extreme cruelty might
not have been so common on Mason's place as on some others. While the
verbal interchange of views was quite full, the hour for the starting of
the Underground Rail Road train arrived too soon to admit of a full
report for the record book. From the original record, however, the
following statement is taken as made by William, and believed to be
strictly true. We give it as it stands on the old Underground Rail Road
book: "I belonged to Senator Mason. The Senator was down on colored
people. He owned about eighty head--was very rich and a big man, rich
enough to lose all of them. He kept terrible overseers; they would beat
you with a stick the same as a dog. The overseers were poor white trash;
he would give them about sixty dollars a year."
The Fugitive Slave Law and its Father are both numbered with the "Lost
Cause," and the "Year of Jubilee has come."
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