longest task fell to the slave, but, in the
rural district household of the farmer or artisan the
master & the mistress
shared it, & when it was finished the
white & the black, like the Feudal chief & his household servants
sat down to the same table,
& shared the same viands. No doubt there
were hard masters & exacting cruel mistresses --
& so there
are cruel fathers & exacting mothers -- unrestrained
power is not a fit human trust. We know
an old man who, fifty years ago, when strict domes
-tic discipline was a cardinal virtue & 'spare
the rod & spoil the child" was written on the
door posts lintel was in the unvarying habit
'after prayers' of a Monday morning of
setting his children, boys & girls nine in
number in a row &, beginning with the
eldest a lad of eighteen, he inflicted
the an hebdominal prospective
chastisement with impartiality
down the whole line to the little urchin
of three years -- And the tradition goes that