gone; and then he hunts or goes to war. Or it may be the survival of
slavery in the State. Slavery was one of the first of human
institutions. The strong man made the weak man work for him. The warlike
race subdued the less warlike race, and made them their slaves. Thus
slavery existed from the earliest times. In Greece and Rome the righting
was done by freemen, the labour by helots and bondsmen. But slavery also
existed in the family. The wife was the slave of her husband as much as
the slave whom he bought in the public market.

Slavery long existed among ourselves. It existed when Caesar lauded. It
existed in Saxon times, when the household work was done by slaves. The
Saxons were notorious slave-dealers, and the Irish were their best
customers. The principal mart was at Bristol, from whence the Saxons
exported large numbers of slaves into Ireland so that, according to
Irish historians, there was scarcely a house in Ireland without a
British slave in it.

When the Normans took possession of England, they continued slavery.
They made slaves of the Saxons themselves whom they decreed villeins and
bondsmen. Domesday Book shows that the toll of the market at Lewes in
Sussex was a penny for a cow, and fourpence for a slave--not a serf
(_adscriptus glebae_), but an unconditional bondsman. From that time
slavery continued in various forms. It is recorded of "the good old
times," that it was not till the reign of Henry IV. (1320--1413) that
villeins, farmers, and mechanics were permitted by law to put their
children to school; and long after that, they dared not educate a son
for the Church without a licence from the lord.[1] The Kings of England,
in their contests with the feudal aristocracy, gradually relaxed the
slave laws. They granted charters founding Royal Burghs; and when the
slaves fled into them, and were able to conceal themselves for a year