There are two rocks in mid-sea, on each of which, neglected equally by instructive and commercial powers, a handful of inhabitants live as they may. Two merchants bid for the two properties, but not on the same terms. One bids for the people, buys them, and sets them to work, under pain of the scourge; the other bids for the rock, buys it, and throws the inhabitants into the sea. The former is the American, the latter the English method of slavery; much is to be said for, and something against, both.
— RUSKIN, Munera Pulveris (1863), Chap. V., Sec. 131.
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