SLATE-WORKING. 



SLAVE, SLAVERY, SLAVE-TRADE. 



602 



s]i 'ken, .1 party has actually sustained sortie injury, he may maintain 

 an action of slander against the person who has uttered them. In 

 such case the injury must be some certain actual loss, and it must 

 also arise as a natural and lawful consequence of speaking the words. 

 No unlawful act done by a third person, although he really was 

 moved to do it by the words spoken, is such an injury as a party can 

 recover for in this action. Thus, the loss of the society and entertain- 

 ment of friends, of an appointment to some office, the breach of a 

 marriage engagement caused by the slanderer's statement, are injuries 

 for which a party may recover damages But he can have no action 

 because in consequence of such statement certain persons, to use an 

 illustration of Lord Ellenborough's, ' have thrown him into a horse- 

 pond by way of punishment for his supposed transgression.'' 



With respect to both kinds of slanrler, it is immaterial in what way 

 the charge is conveyed, whether by direct statement, or obliquely, as 

 by question, epithet, or exclamation. 



Two cannot join in bringing one action of slander, except in the 

 case of husband and wife, or of partners for an injury done to their 

 joint trade; nor can an action be brought against two, except a 

 husband and wife, where slanderous words have been spoken by the 

 wife. 



In answer to an action of slander the defendant may plead that the 

 words spoken were true, or that they were spoken in the course of a 

 trial in a court of justice, and were pertinent to the case ; or formed 

 the subject of a confidential communication, as where a party on 

 application t<md Jide states what he believes to be true relative to the 

 character of a servant, or makes known facts merely for the purpose 

 of honestly warning another in whom he is interested. (Com., J>iy. 

 ' Action on the Case for Defamation,' D. 1, &c. ) 



SLATK-WOKKING. Referring to SLATF, in XAT. HIST. Div., for 

 an account of the geological formation and structure of this valuable 

 rock, we here add a few words concerning its practical working. 



The quarrying of slate is comparatively easy, seeing that the lamel- 

 lated structure enables the substance to split easily iut > layers. The 

 usual processes are adopted for sawing and smoothing the slabs ; but 

 improved machines for these purposes have been introduced within 

 the last few years. One machine has been invented for hollowing out 

 thick blocks of slate into sinks and vessels, by means of cutters screwed 

 to the ends of revolving sliafts. By the use of peculiar tools, slate is 

 now turned in the lathe. Mr. Mathews's apparatus for cutting and 

 dressing slate consists of a frame, provided with arms, cutters, levers, 

 toothed wheels. &c., in such a way that the cutters may be raised by a 

 lever, and let fall with a sudden blow ; and this in such a manner as to 

 work the slate either into plain or fancy surfaces. Ordinary slate 

 cannot very well be polished like other kinds of hard stone ; it is 

 rubbed smooth with an iron plate, sand, or gritstone, and water. 

 Within the last quarter of a century, there has been a tendency to use 

 slate for many purposes for which other substances used to be em- 

 ployed. The slate top of a billiard table is perhaps the best kind of 

 work in this material. The best tables measure 12 feet by 6 feet : the 

 top consists of four slabs of slate 6 feet by 3 feet, and one inch thick, 

 ground on the lower surface, planed on the upper, and adjusted edge 

 to edge with the most scrupulous care. Pavements, cisterns, walls, 

 partitions. &c., :ire now largely made in thin material. " Enamelled 

 slate " is used for table tops, chimney pieces, wash-stand tops, columns, 

 pilasters, door furniture, monuments, mural tablets, Ac. 



What are called slate pencilt are simply narrow slips of a soft kind 

 of slate. Some of them are made to slide in wooden tubes or holders, 

 by a propelling apparatus similar in character to that of certain of the 

 ever-pointed pencils Artificial slate pencils have been introduced, 

 made of a mixture of alumina, French chalk, and soapstone. 



The largest slate quarries in the United Kingdom are the Penrhyn, 

 belonging to Colonel Pennant. These are briefly noticed under BANGOR, 

 in OEOO. Div. 



M. Raphael Carmana has recently proposed the use- of slate as a 

 substitute for box-wood in wood engraving. He states that it is easily 

 penetrated by the graver ; that the finest lines are producible ; and 

 that slate i more durable than box under the action of the printing- 

 pnm, 



SLAVE, SLAVERY, SLAVE-TRADE. The word slavery has 

 various acceptation*, but its complete meaning is the condition of an 

 individual who is the property of another or others. Such was the 

 condition of the " servi," or slaves among the Romans and Greeks ; 

 nuch is still that of the slaves in Eastern countries, and that of the 

 negro slaves in many parts of Africa and America. A mitigated form 

 of this condition has existed up to the present time in the case of the 

 serfs in Russia and Poland, though in the former, at least, it is about 

 to lie abolished ; and still exists among a similar class in India and 

 some other parts of Asia. The Russian and Polish serf is bound to 

 the soil on which he is born ; he may be sold or let with it, but can- 

 not be sold away from it without his consent ; he is obliged to work 

 three or four days a-week for his master, who allows him a piece of 

 land, which he cultivates. He can marry, and his wife and children 

 are under his authority till they are of age. He can bequeath his 

 chattels and savings at his death. His life is protected by the law. 

 The slave of the Greek and Roman nations had none of these advan- 

 tage*, any more than the negro slave of our own times ; he was bought 

 and sold in the market, and was transferred at his owner's pleasure ; 



he could acquire no property ; all that he had was his master's ; all 

 the produce of his labour belonged to his master, who could inflict 

 corporeal punishment upon him ; he could not marry ; and if he 

 cohabited with a woman, he could be separated from her and his 

 children at any time, and the woman and children sold. The distinc- 

 tion therefore between the slave and the serf is essential. The villeins 

 (villani) of the middle ages were a kind of serfs, but their condition 

 seems to have varied considerably according to times and localities. 

 In the present article we treat only of the real slave of ancient and 

 modern times. 



Slavery, properly so called, appears to have been, from the earliest 

 ages, the condition of a large proportion of mankind in almost every 

 country, until times comparatively recent, when it has been gradually 

 abolished by all Christian states, at least in Europe. The condition 

 of slavery constitutes one great difference between ancient and modern 

 society. Slavery existed among the Jews ; it existed before Moses, in 

 the time of the Patriarchs ; and it existed, and still continues to exist, 

 in many parts of Asia. The " sen-ants" mentioned in Scripture 

 history were mostly slaves : they were strangers, either taken prisoners 

 in war or purchased from the neighbouring nations. They and their 

 offspring were the property of their masters, who could sell them, and 

 inflict upon them corporeal punishment, and even iu some cases put 

 them to death. But the Hebrews had also slaves of their own 

 nation. These were men who sold themselves through poverty, or 

 they were insolvent debtors, or men who had committed a theft, and 

 had not the means of making restitution as required by the law, which 

 was to double the amount, and iu some cases much more. (Exod. 

 xxii. ) Not only the person of the debtor was liable to the claims of 

 the creditor, but his right extended also to the debtor's wife and 

 children. Moses regulated the condition of slavery. He drew a wide 

 distinction between the alien slave and the native servant. The latter 

 could not be a perpetual bondman, but might be redeemed ; and if 

 not redeemed, he became free on the completion of the seventh year 

 of his servitude Again, every fifty years the jubilee caused a general 

 emancipation of all native servants. 



The sources of the supply of slaves have been the game both in 

 ancient and modern times. In ancient times all prisoners were 

 reduced to slavery, being either distributed among the officers and 

 men of the conquering army, or sold. When the e^rly .Eolian and 

 Ionian colonies settled in the islands of the ^Egean Sea, and on the 

 coast of Asia Minor, it was a frequent practice with them to kill the 

 adult males of the aboriginal population, and to keep the women and 

 children. As, however, dealing in slaves became a profitable trade, 

 the vanquished, instead of being killed, were sold, and this was so far 

 an improvement. Another source of slavery was the practice of kid- 

 napping men and women, especially young persons, who were seized 

 on the coast, or enticed on board by the crews of piratical vessels. 

 The Phoenicians, and the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, had the character 

 of being men-stealers ; and also the Cretans, Cilicians, Rhodiaus and 

 other maritime states. Another source was, sale of men, either by 

 themselves, through poverty and distress, or by their relatives and 

 superiors, as is done now by the petty African chiefs, who sell not 

 only their prisoners, but their own subjects, and even their children, 

 to the slave-dealers. Herodotus (v. 6) states that some of the Thraciau 

 tribes sold their children to foreign dealers. 



Among the Greeks slavery existed from the heroic times, and the 

 purchase anil use of slaves are repeatedly mentioned by Hotner. The 

 labours of husbandry were performed in some instances by poor free- 

 men for hire, but in most places, especially in the Doric states, by a 

 class of bondmen, the descendants of the older inhabitants of the 

 country, resembling the serfs of the middle ages, who lived upon and 

 cultivated the landd which the conquering race had appropriated to 

 themselves ; they paid a rent to the respective proprietors, whom 

 they also attended in war. They could not be put to death without 

 trial, nor be sold out of the country, nor separated from their families ; 

 they could acquire property, and were often richer than their masters. 

 Such were the Clarotse of Crete, the Penestte of Thessaly Proper, and 

 the Helots of Sparta, who must not be confounded with the Periceci, 

 or country inhabitants of Laconica in general, who were political sub- 

 jects of the Doric community of Sparta, without however being 

 bondmen. In the colonies of the Dorians beyond the limits of 

 Greece, the condition of the conquered natives was often more 

 degraded than that of the bondmen of the parent states, because the 

 former were not Greeks, but barbarians, and they were reduced to 

 the condition of slaves. Such was the case of the Kallirioi or Kalli- 

 kurioi of Syracuse, and of the native Bithynians at Byzantium. At 

 Heraclea in Pontus, the Mariandyni submitted to the Greeks on con- 

 dition that they should not be sold beyond the borders, and that they 

 should pay a fixed tribute to the ruling race. 



The Doric states of Greece had few purchased slaves, but Athens, 

 Corinth, and other commercial states had a large number, who were 

 mostly natives of barbarous countries. The slave population in Attica 

 IMS been variously estimated as to numbers, and it varied of course 

 considerably at different periods ; but it appears that in Athena, at 

 east in the time of its greatest power, they were much more numerous 

 than the freemen. From a fragment of Hyperides preserved by Suidas 

 r. airii^J7<p(<raTo), the number of slaves appears to have been at one 

 ime 1 50,000, who were employed in the fields and mines of Attica 



