It is one of the most common caprices of human nature, for the heart to become by habit, not only totally insensible to certain forms of cruelty, which at first gave it inexpressible pain, but even to find its chief amusement in such cruelties, till utterly intoxicated by their stimulation; while at the same time the mind seems to be pained as keenly as ever, at forms of cruelty to which it has not become accustomed, thus retaining apparently the same general susceptibilities.  Illustrations of this are to be found every where; one happens to lie before us.  Bourgoing, in his history of modern Spain, speaking of the bull fights, the barbarous national amusement of the Spaniards, says: 

“Young ladies, old men, people of all ages and of all characters are present, and yet the habit of attending these bloody festivals does not correct their weakness or their timidity, nor injure the sweetness of their manners.  I have moreover known foreigners, distinguished by the gentleness of their manners, who experienced at first seeing a bull-fight such very violent emotions as made them turn pale, and they became ill; but, notwithstanding, this entertainment became afterwards an irresistible attraction, without operating any revolution in their characters.”  Modern State of Spain, by J. F. Bourgoing, Minister Plenipotentiary from France to the Court of Madrid, Vol ii., page 342.

It is the novelty of cruelty, rather than the degree, which repels most minds.  Cruelty in a new form, however slight, will often pain a mind that is totally unmoved by the most horrible cruelties in a form to which it is accustomed.  When Pompey was at the zenith of his popularity in Rome, he ordered some elephants to be tortured in the amphitheatre for the amusement of the populace; this was the first time they had witnessed the torture of those animals, and though for years accustomed to witness in the same place, the torture of lions, tigers, leopards, and almost all sorts of wild beasts, as well as that of men of all nations, and to shout acclamations over their agonies, yet, this novel form of cruelty so shocked the beholders, that the most popular man in Rome was execrated as a cruel monster, and came near falling a victim to the fury of those who just before were ready to adore him.

We will now briefly notice another objection, somewhat akin to the preceding, and based mainly upon the same and similar fallacies.

OBJECTION III.—­’SLAVEHOLDERS ARE PROVERBIAL FOR THEIR KINDNESS, HOSPITALITY, BENEVOLENCE, AND GENEROSITY.’

Multitudes scout as fictions the cruelties inflicted upon slaves, because slaveholders are famed for their courtesy and hospitality.  They tell us that their generous and kind attentions to their guests, and their well-known sympathy for the suffering, sufficiently prove the charges of cruelty brought against them to be calumnies, of which their uniform character is a triumphant refutation.