42
Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.
JAN.
About the same time our presents were refused acceptance, and se- veral lots of them actually sent back, as if to seal our dismal doom at this critical juncture, by far the greater part of our available coin, six hundred dollars and upwards, were stolen from us, and all knowledge of the theft was not only clean denied, but the impossibility of such a case happening in a house watched within and without like ours, triumphantly dwelt upon in two long dispatches, ostensibly coming from the first magnate in the country. But perfectly cured as I now was of the deluding influences Capt. Hall's narrative had inflicted on my good natured disposition, I strongly insisted upon the removal of those whom I had palpable reason enough to consider in-door thieves, and perhaps official burglars. I was thereby freed from direct sur- veillance of my domestic doings, and the shame of having guards fol- lowing my every step out of doors, but it did not better our position with the people. Several new guard-posts were erected in the lanes, which I was obliged to pass when leaving the temple; one of them was so situated that I could be descried as soon as I emerged from the bend of a wall that hides the door, so that I saw my unsought outriders, turn into every corner long before I could reach any lane. Of course on reaching it I found a complete wilderness, a grave-like silence, as if not a living being dwelt in any of the houses bordering the long streets. I was wonderfully sustained under these trials, trials almost maddening to my susceptible feelings, which had never before been outraged to such a degree. I had never before known a case where a man in his sound senses was made a kind of scarecrow, before whom his fellow- men flew off in all directions bewildered like terror stricken birds.
At the same time, I could easily conceive how much the people them- selves were annoyed, and this increased my pain. I might for hours walk up and down a lane by myself, and I once tried for a whole week, besieging a row of shops from morning to night but in vain ; not a door would open. Have you ever heard anything similar? Surely this people are grass, yea, chaff trod under by the heavy foot of pitiless barbarism; this land is the caldron, the people are the flesh, and the savage rulers devour them. The whole nation are slaves, worse than the negroes, bleeding and agonizing under the lash of a few taskmas- ters who know not, and will not learn to govern them kindly. What niust be the enormities of the penal code that can secure such degrad- ing obedience? For how can such a state of things be imagined, and above all realized, unless long continued, barbarous cruelties, though perhaps hiddenly perpetrated, bring the victims to bear, as the Lew- chewans bear, the spoiling of their goods, fasting, and incarceration in