Here we may refer again to Cervantes, whose pen was dipped in his own
dark experience. His "Life in Algiers" exhibits the horrors of the
slave-market as it might be exhibited now. The public crier exposes
for sale a father and mother with two children. They are to be sold
separately, or, according to the language of our day, "in lots to suit
purchasers." The father is resigned, confiding in God; the mother
sobs; while the children, ignorant of the inhumanity of men, show an
instinctive trust in the constant and wakeful protection of their
parents,--now, alas! impotent to shield them from dire calamity. A
merchant, inclining to purchase one of the children, and wishing to
ascertain his bodily condition, makes him open his mouth. The child,
ignorant of the destiny which awaits him, imagines that the purchaser
is about to extract a tooth, and, assuring him that it does not
ache, begs him to desist. The merchant, in other respects estimable
enough, pays one hundred and thirty dollars for the youngest child,
and the sale is completed. Thus a human being--one of those "little
ones" who inspired the Saviour to say, "Of such is the kingdom of
heaven"--is profanely treated as an article of merchandise, and torn
from a mother's arms and a father's support. The hardening influence
of custom has steeled the merchant into criminal insensibility to this
violation of humanity and justice, this laceration of sacred ties,
this degradation of God's image. The unconscious heartlessness of
the slave-dealer and the anguish of his victims are depicted in the
dialogue which ensues after the sale.