they _are_ infamous. In New York they are indeed done in
_dens_, by felons who flee the eye of the policeman,--unless, to be
sure, the police have been appointed by a certain _alter ego_ of yours
in negro-hatred, whilom chief magistrate and disgrace of that
unfortunate city. But under your life-service _regime_ things are
managed in a more enlightened way. There they who have liberty--and
_sometimes_ use the liberty--to torture women into beastly submissions,
do not hide from the laws, they make the laws. There such a personage as
the one mentioned may be a _gentleman_, a man of high standing," one of
the most respectable men in the State" (Florida).

And this, just _this_,--for surely you will not be a coward, and dodge
consequences,--you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so much
superior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be the
shrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging it
the chief duty of the State to annex to these rights the requisite force
for their practical assertion.

Is it, then, You, or is it some burglarious Devil that has broken into
your bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over this
infernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic who
is engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is it
your very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling _eau-de-Cologne_
on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise and
commend it to the nostrils of mankind? Is it in very deed Thomas
Carlyle, Thomas the Great, who now volunteers his services as male
lady's-maid to the queen-strumpet of modern history, and offers to her
sceptred foulness the benefit of his skill at the literary rouge-pots?
You? Yes? I give you joy of your avocations! Truly, it was worth the
while, having such a cause, to defame a noble people in the very hour of
their life-and-death struggle!

Well, you have made your election; now I make mine. It is my deliberate
belief that no man ever gave heartier love and homage to another than I
to you; but while one woman in America may be _lawfully_ sent to the
whipping-post on such occasion, I will hold your existence and name, if
they come between me and her rescue, but as the life of a stinging gnat!
I love you,--but cannot quite sacrifice to you the sanctity of
womanhood, and all the honor and all the high hopes of a great nation.
Your scheme of "life-hire" will therefore have