South are degraded so to the level of brutes, that baptizing them and
admitting them to Christian ordinances is about the same as though he
should say to his dogs, "I baptize thee, Bose, in," etc. This, he tells
us, he repeated many times here, and in England.[1] Nothing but love of
truth and just hatred of "the sum of all villanies" could, of course,
have made him venture so near the verge of unpardonable blasphemy as to
speak thus. Yet your feelings and behavior toward this babe are in
direct conflict with his theory. Pray whom am I to believe?

[Footnote 1: See "Sigma's" communications to the _Boston Transcript_,
August, 1857.]

Perhaps now I have hit upon a solution. Some people, Walter Scott is an
instance, bury their favorite dogs with all the honors of a decorated
sepulture. Rather than believe that your slaves are commonly regarded by
you as your fellow-creatures, having rights which you love to consider,
or, that you do not mercilessly dispose of them to promote your selfish
interests, we, the Northern people, who have had the very best of
teachers on the subject of slavery, learnedly theoretical, reasoning
from the eternal principles of right, would incline to believe that your
interest in the burial of this little slave-babe was merely that which
your own child would feel on seeing her kitten carefully buried at the
foot of the apple-tree.

One thing, however, suggests a difficulty in feeling our way to this
conclusion. I mention it because of the perfect candor which guides the
sentiments and feelings of all Northern people in speaking of slavery
and slave-holders.

The difficulty is this: Who was "poor old Timmy"? Some old slave in your