I only wonder he managed to stay so long in this world of sin.
When, after fiery trials and persecutions, he is finally purchased by a Mr.
Legree, Mrs.Stowe speaks of the horrors of the scene.

She says though, "it can't be helped." Did it ever occur to her, that Northerners might go South, and buy a great many of these slaves, and manumit them?
They do go South and buy them, but they keep them, and work them as slaves too.

A great deal of this misery _might_ be helped.
Tom arrives at Legree's plantation.

How does he fare?
Sleeps on a little foul, dirty straw, jammed in with a lot of others; has every night toward midnight enough corn to stay the stomach of one small chicken; and is thrown into a most dreadful state of society--men degraded, and women degraded.

We will pass over scenes that a woman's pen should never describe, and observe the saint-like perfection of Tom.