142 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



beasts, were scattered on every hand. Fortunately they 

 were too strong to burst, but the bowlings and roarings of 

 the lions and tigers were something horrible to listen to. 

 The loss of property was very serious ; the aimless cruelty 

 thus passionately inflicted on a quantity of innocent 

 animals was more serious still. But the proprietor of the 

 menagerie knew that he had no redress, and he sought 

 none. Scarcely less daunting than this occurrence, was a 

 duel in the neighbourhood, in which the combatants 

 almost literally hacked each other to pieces with bowie- 

 knives ; and in many cases of vendetta, what the bowie- 

 knife spared, the rifle devoured. 



Closely connected with these disquieting elements in 

 society was that central fact in Southern life, the institution 

 of slavery. Philip Gosse was not a humanitarian. The 

 subject of slavery was one which had not troubled his 

 thoughts in coming to the South ; he had been aware of its 

 existence, of course, and he supposed that he had dis- 

 counted it. But he found it more horrible, and the discus- 

 sion of it more dangerous, than he had in the least degree 

 imagined. He was looked upon, as an Englishman, with 

 a peculiar jealousy, as a person predisposed to question 

 " our domestic institution," as it was called. He soon had 

 unquestionable proofs that his trunks were surreptitiously 

 opened and his letters examined, obviously to ascertain 

 whether his correspondence touched upon this tenderest 

 of themes. He had, however, warned his friends, and he was 

 careful himself to be most guarded upon this subject. It 

 was not until he was in act of leaving the country that he 

 dared to put pen to paper on this theme. " What will be 

 the end of American slavery } " he asks, and the query was 

 one to which in 1838 there seemed no answer. "There 

 are men here," he proceeds, " who dare not entertain this 

 question. They tremble when they look at the future. It 



