HORACE MOULTON.

One slave, who was under my care, was whipped, I think one hundred lashes, for getting a small handful of wood from his master's yard without leave. I heard an overseer boasting to his master that he gave one of the boys seventy lashes, for not doing a job of work just as he thought it ought to be done. The owner of the slave appeared to be pleased that the overseer had been so faithful. The apology they make for whipping so cruelly is, that it is to frighten the rest of the gang. The masters say, that what we call an ordinary flogging will not subdue the slaves; hence the most cruel and barbarous scourgings ever witnessed by man are daily and hourly inflicted upon the naked bodies of these miscrable bondmen; not by masters and negro-drivers only, but by the constables in the common markets and jailors in their yards.

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It is very common for masters to say to the overseers or drivers, "put it on to them," "don't spare that fellow," give that scoundrel one hundred lashes," &c. Whipping the women when in delicate circumstances, as they sometimes do, without any regard to their entreaties or the entreaties of their nearest friends, is truly barbarous. If negroes could testify, they would tell you of instances of women being whipped until they have miscarried at the whipping-post. I heard of such things at the south-they are undoubtedly facts. Children are whipped unmercifully for the smallest offences, and that before their mothers. A large proportion of the blacks have their shoulders, backs, and arms all scarred up, and not a few of them have had their heads laid open with clubs, stones, and brick-bats, and with the butt-end of whips and canes-some have had their jaws broken, others their teeth knocked in or out; while others have had their ears cropped and the sides of their cheeks gashed out. Some of the poor creatures have lost the sight of one of their eyes by the careless blows of the whipper, or by some other violence.

But punishing slaves as above described, is not the only mode of torture. Some tie them up in a very uneasy posture, where they must stand all night, and they will then work them hard all daythat is, work them hard all day and torment them all night. Others punish by fastening them down on a log, or something else, and strike them on the bare skin with a board paddle full of holes. This breaks the skin, I should presume, at every hole where it comes in contact with it. Others, when other modes of punishment will not subdue them, cat-haul them-that is, take a cat by the nape of the neck and tail, or by the hind legs, and drag the claws across the back until satisfied. This kind of punishment poisons the flesh much worse than the whip, and is more dreaded by the slave. Some are branded by a hot iron, others have their flesh cut out in large gashes, to mark them. Some who are prone to run away, have iron fetters riveted around their ancles, soinetimes they are put only on one foot, and are dragged on the ground. Others have on large iron collars or yokes upon their necks, or clogs riveted upon their wrists or ancles. Some have bells put upon them, hung upon a sort of frame to an iron collar.

Another dark side of slavery is the neglect of the aged and sick. Many when sick, are suspected by their masters of feigning sickness, and are therefore whipped out to work after disease has got fast hold of them; when the masters learn, that they are really sick, they are in many instances left alone in their cabins during work hours; not a few of the slaves are left to die without having one friend to wipe off the sweat of death. When the slaves are sick, the masters do not, as a general thing, employ physicians, but "doctor" them themselves, and their mode of practice in almost all cases is to bleed and give salts.

SARAH M. GRIMKE.

A highly intelligent slave, who panted after freedom with ceaseless longings, made many attempts to get possession of himself. For every offence he was punished with extreme severity. At one time he was tied up by his hands to a tree, and whipped until his back was one gore of blood. To this terrible infliction he was subjected at intervals for several weeks, and kept heavily ironed while at his work. His master one day accused him of a fault, in the usual terms dictated by passion and arbitrary power; the man protested his innocence, but was not credited. He again repelled the charge with honest indignation. His master's temper rose almost to frenzy; and seizing a fork, he made a deadly plunge at the breast of his slave. The man being far his superior in strength, caught his arm, and dashed the weapon on the floor. His master grasped at his throat, but the slave disengaged himself, and rushed from the apartment. Having made his escape, he fled to the woods; and after wandering about for many months, living on roots and berries, and enduring every hardship, he was arrested and committed to jail. Here he lay for a considerable time, allowed scarcely food enough to sustain life, whipped in the most shocking manner, and confined in a cell so loath. some, that when his master visited him, he said the stench was enongh to knock a man down. The filth had never been removed from the apartment since the poor creature had been immured in it. Although a black man, such had been the effect of starvation and suffering, that his master declared he hardly recognized him-his complexion was so yellow, and his hair, naturally thick and black, had become red and scanty; an infallible sign of long continued liv. ing on bad and insufficient food. Stripes, imprisonment, and the gnawings of hunger, had broken his lofty spirit for a season; and, to use his master's own exulting expression, he was "as humble as a dog." After a time he made another attempt to escape, and was absent so long, that a reward was offered for him, dead or alive. He eluded every attempt to take him, and his master, despairing of ever getting him again, offered to pardon him if he would return home. It is always understood that such intelligence will reach the runaway; and accordingly, at the entreaties of his wife and mother, the fugitive once more consented to return to his bitter bondage. I believe this was the last effort to obtain his liberty. His heart become touched with the power of the gospel; and the spirit which no in

flictions could subdue, bowed at the cross of Jesus, and with the language on his lips" the cup that my father hath given me, shall I not drink it ?" submitted to the yoke of the oppressor, and wore his chains in unmurmuring patience till death released him. The master who perpetrated these wrongs upon his slave, was one of the most influential and honored citizens of South Carolina, and to his equals was bland, and courteous, and benevolent even to a proverb.

JOHN GRAHAM.

After the blessing was asked at the breakfast table, one of the servants, a woman grown, in giving one of the children some molasses, happened to pour out a little more than usual, though not more than the child usually eats. Her master was angry at the petty and indifferent mistake, or slip of the hand. He rose from the table, took both of her hands in one of his, and with the other began to beat her, first on one side of her head and then on the other, and repeating this, till, as he said on sitting down at table, it hurt his hand too much to continue it longer. He then took off his shoe, and with the heel began in the same manner as with his hand, till the poor creature could no longer endure it without screeches and raising her elbow as it is natural to ward off the blows. He then called a great overgrown negro to hold her hands behind her while he should wreak his vengeance upon the poor servant. In this posi tion he began again to beat the poor suffering wretch. It now became intolerable to bear; she fell, screaming to me for help. After she fell, he beat her until I thought she would have died in his hands. She got up, however, went out and washed off the blood and came in before we rose from table, one of the most pitiable objects I ever saw till I came to the south. Her ears were almost as thick as my hand, her eyes awfully blood-shotten, her lips, nose, cheeks, chin, and whole head swollen so that no one would have known it was Etta and for all this, she had to turn round as she was going out and thank her master!

WILLIAM POE.

Benjamin James Harris, a wealthy tobacconist of Richmond, Virginia, whipped a slave girl fifteen years old to death. While he was whipping her, his wife heated a smoothing iron, put it on her body in various places, and burned her severely. The verdict of the coro. ner's inquest was, "Died of excessive whipping." He was tried in Richmond, and acquitted. I attended the trial. Some years after. this same Harris whipped another slave to death. The man had not done so much work as was required of him. After a number of pro tracted and violent scourgings, with short intervals between, the slave died under the lash. Harris was tried, and again acquitted, because none but blacks saw it done. The same nan afterwards whipped another slave severely, for not doing work to please him. After re peated and severe floggings in quick succession, for the same cause,

the slave, in despair of pleasing him, cut off his own hand. Harris soon after became a bankrupt, went to New-Orleans to recruit his finances, failed, removed to Kentucky, became a maniac, and died.

PRIVATIONS OF SLAVES.

By confining the slaves to the southern states, where crops are raised for exportation, and bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are ill fed.-Alexander Smyth.

Speaking of the condition of slaves, in the eastern part of that state, the report says,-The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half starved much of the time.-Gradual Emancipation Soc. N. Carolina.

The slaves down the Mississippi, are half-starved, the boats when they stop at night, are constantly boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat.-Tobias Boudinot.

A few years since, he was at a brick yard in the environs of NewOrleans, in which one hundred hands were employed; among them were from twenty to thirty young women, in the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor, that there had not been a child born among them for the last two or three years, although they all had husbands. -Hon. H. Clay.

JOHN WOOLMAN.

Many of the white people in these provinces, take little or no care of negro marriages; and when negroes marry, after their own way, some make so little account of those marriages, that, with views of outward interest, they often part men from their wives, by selling them far asunder; which is common when estates are sold by executors at vendue.

Many whose labor is heavy, being followed at their business in the field by a man with a whip, hired for that purpose,-have, in common, little else allowed them but one peck of Indian corn and some salt for one week, with a few potatoes. (The potatoes they commonly raise by their labor on the first day of the week.) The correction ensuing on their disobedience to overseers, or slothfulness in business, is often very severe, and sometimes desperate. Men and women have many times scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness-and boys and girls, ten and twelve years. old, are often quite naked among their masters' children. Some use endeavors to instruct those (negro children) they have in reading; but in common, this is not only neglected, but disapproved.

JAMES K. PAULDING.

The sun was shining out very hot-and in turning the angle of the road, we encountered the following group: first, a little cart drawn by one horse, in which five or six half naked black children

were tumbled like pigs together. The cart had no covering, and they seemed to have been broiled to sleep. Behind the cart marched three black women, with head, neck and breasts uncovered, and without shoes or stockings: next came three men, bare-headed, and chained together with an ox-chain. Last of all, came a white man on horse back, carrying his pistols in his belt, and who, as we passed him, had the impudence to look us in the face without blushing. At a house where we stopped a little further on, we learned that he had bought these miserable beings in Maryland, and was marching them in this manner to one of the more southern states. Shame on the state of Maryland and I say, shame on the state of Virginia! and every state through which this wretched cavalcade was permitted to pass! I do say, that when they (the slave-holders) permit such flagrant and indecent outrages upon humanity as that I have described; when they sanction a villain, in thus marching half naked women and men, loaded with chains, without being charged with any crime but that of being black, from one section of the United States to another, hundreds of miles in the face of day, they disgrace themselves, and the country to which they belong.-Letters from the South, First Edition.

STEPHEN SEWALL.

I was witness to such cruelties by an overseer to a slave, that he twice attempted to drown himself, to get out of his power: this was on a raft of staves, in the Mobile river. I saw an owner take his runaway slave, tie a rope round him, then get on his horse, give the slave and horse a cut with the whip, and run the poor creature barefooted, very fast, over rough ground, where small black jack oaks had been cut up, leaving the sharp stumps, on which the slave would frequently fall; then the master would drag him as long as he could himself hold out; then stop, and whip him up on his feet again-then proceed as before. This continued until he got out of my sight, which was about half a mile. But what further cruelties this wretched man, (whose passion was so excited that he could scarcely utter a word when he took the slave into his own power,) inflicted upon his poor victim, the day of judgment will unfold.

I have seen slaves severely whipped on plantations, but this is an every day occurrence, and comes under the head of general treat

ment.

I have known the case of a husband compelled to whip his wife. 'This I did not witness, though not two rods from the cabin at the time.

I will now inention the case of cruelty before referred to. In 1820 or 21, while the public works were going forward on Dauphin Island, Mobile Bay, a contractor, engaged on the works, beat one of his slaves so severely that the poor creature had no longer power to writhe under his suffering: he took out his knife, and began to cut his flesh in strips, from his hips down. At this moment the gentleman referred to, who was also a contractor, shocked at such inhumanity, stepped forward, between the wretch and his victim, and ex