Comments on: The Little Visitors

By: Agent X

Agent X — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 20:42:58 +0000

Would you allow a small correction? –

The article says “Even after the slave trade was outlawed by the 1807 Slave Trade Act, it was not until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that it became illegal to own or purchase slaves.”

This isn’t correct in relation to Scotland. – In Scotland, it had been illegal to own a slave from 1778 onwards. Yet another example in which Scotland has been more progressive than the UK as a whole.

By: Catvonpurr

Catvonpurr — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 11:05:12 +0000

A touching tale and beautiful illustrations/engravings! The angora looks very regal.

By: Eva Radford

Eva Radford — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 21:48:44 +0000

This reminds me of the Marina Endicott’s brilliant and beautiful novel, The Difference, in which one of the characters, the wife of a ship’s captain, buys a little Micronesian boy thinking she is saving him from starvation. She and the boy are forever changed by this act.

By: Ms Mischief

Ms Mischief — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 17:46:27 +0000

What a lovely little book! Darton is an interesting publisher, and employed some excellent engravers, as the illustrations show. The way in which a children’s story can convey a wider message was something known at the time. There were English people who cared about the downtrodden, and they eventually prevailed, but it is a constant struggle, as the love of money corrupts judgment in harder hearted people, like the sailors in the story. People who lack empathy do not have any notion what it is like to be predated upon, and in almost all societies there are human victims of human predators. Other characters in stories of this era were poor orphan children, born into poverty, and forced into working as chimney sweeps. Many of them died in narrow flues, were injured or burnt, or contracted a terrible form of cancer from exposure to the soot. You have only to think of William Blake’s Songs to know that good people were protesting loudly against the inhumanity of the day, just as they do today. The slavery of the English class system, and the sex business, with all their many deaths and damaged lives was operating here at the same time, killing people here too. Working class children were scalped in factories, lost limbs, were crippled by industrial diseases, died in machinery and down mines. And not just children, adult workers too, male and female. The inheritors of the wealth made by such forms of exploitation over centuries are still among us, the money of the upper classes carefully conserved by lawyers, land and property purchased and handed down.

By: Lesley Russell

Lesley Russell — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 13:40:27 +0000

Thank you for this, and so many other wonderful posts that open little windows into other times and other lives.

By: Di Corry

Di Corry — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 08:25:32 +0000

A heart warming tale …..thank you for sharing this with your readers.

By: Mem

Mem — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 08:01:49 +0000

What an interesting story . It casts this whole horrible episode as more complex than it seems . The role of the slave trade in establishing the industrial revolution is also very thought provoking . These poor people’s bodies fuelled so much of our progress in the west . If the slave trade hadn’t happened our world would be a very different place .

By: David Bishop

David Bishop — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 07:07:07 +0000

A really touching story. Thank you for sharing. Black lives matter.

By: Christopher J.P. Russell

Christopher J.P. Russell — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 06:06:55 +0000

“At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. … Gratitude is eternal

By: Pamela Traves

Pamela Traves — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 05:38:32 +0000

What a Lovely Story. The Author has a Good Heart.??????