Mrs. Stowe, presuming on the gullibility of her readers, has made other statements that I will notice.  The wife of this very kind-hearted, humane and gentlemanly man, Shelby, had a maid-servant, by name Eliza; and Eliza had an only child; a very remarkable boy indeed! probably about five or six years of age; if there is any truth in her tale.  Eliza was a delicate bright mulatto girl; a great favorite with her mistress; and her child of course a great favorite with the entire family.  But, as if determined to break his wife’s heart, Shelby sells Eliza’s child also, to the negro trader, Haley.  Here is another, to say the least of it, very improbable statement.  If Shelby was the man that she represents him, he would have sold the entire dozen woolly heads that were perched on the veranda railings, on the morning after the transaction, before he would have sold the only child of his wife’s maid-servant.  The estimation in which maid-servants and their children are held by Southern ladies, is probably unknown to most of my Northern readers.  Unless driven to it by dire necessity, a Southern gentleman would almost as soon part with his own children, as with his wife’s maid-servant, or her children, except for crime.  Eliza is represented by Mrs. Stowe as all perfection and beauty, and her darling boy as a little angel.  Maid-servants occupy a position in Southern families far above that of any other class of servants; but little below the white members of the family.  I resided forty-four years in the Southern States, and it is with pride that I record the fact, that a Southern gentleman would dispose of anything—­everything—­carriages, horses, stocks, tenements and lands, before he would dispose of such servants as Uncle Tom, and his wife’s maid-servant’s child, and thereby break his wife’s heart.  No! far be it from Southern men; their wives are their all; and far be it from them, to say or do aught in opposition to the will of their wives, anything that will deeply mortify or afflict them.  A man would be hooted from genteel society in the Southern States, for such an ignoble act.  Whatever the faults of Southern men may be, they feel themselves bound to treat their wives with consideration, respect and kindness.  But I must return to Eliza and her boy.  Eliza, overhearing the conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, on the night after the interview between Shelby and Haley, she cautiously and quietly takes her boy out of the bed, and elopes.  She hastens with all possible speed to the State of Ohio.  Haley returns to Shelby’s on the succeeding morning for the purpose of taking possession of Tom, and Eliza’s child; but Eliza having decamped with the child, he and a couple of Shelby’s negro men go in pursuit of her.  They overtook her at the river; and Mrs. Stowe tells us, that she fled precipitately across the river on floating fragments of ice, with her boy in her arms!  She tells us, that the ice was floating, and that a boat was expected