seen a woman, a mother, compelled, in the presence of her master and mistress, to hold up her clothes, and endure the whip of the driver on the naked body for more than twenty minutes, and while her cries would have rent the heart of any one, who had not hardened himself to human suf. fering. Her master and mistress were conversing with apparent indifference. What was her crime? She had a task given her of sewing which she must finish that day. Late at night she finished it; but the stitches were too long, and she must be whipped. The same was repeated three or four nights for the same offence. I had heard

of the whipping-post, and the extent of its use. I have seen a man tied to a tree, hands and feet, and receive three hundred and five blows with the paddle* on the fleshy parts of the body. Two others received the same kind of punishment at the time, though I did not count the blows. One received two hundred and thirty lashes. Their crime was stealing. One of them had asked for meat, saying that he could not work without it. He was refused the meat, and with a few others killed and secreted a hog of his master's. They had nearly finished the pork, when it was found, and being charged with stealing it, they did not deny it, but one of them remarked with unusual firmness, that he must have meat, he could not work on [corn] bread. (His master owns from eighty to one hundred hogs.) I have frequently heard the shrieks of the slaves, male and female, accompanied by the strokes of the paddle or whip, when I have not gone near the scene of horror. I knew not their crimes, excepting one woman, which was stealing four potatoes to eat with her bread! So much have I seen on one plantation. Of the general treatment of the slaves, I can judge only from a few facts which I accidentally learn. Masters are not forward to publish their "domestic regulations," and as neighbors are usually several miles apart, one's observation must be limited. Hence the few instances of cruelty which break out can be but a fraction of what is practised. A planter, a professor of religion, in conversation upon the univer* A piece of oak timber, three and a half feet long, flat and wide at one end.

sality of whipping, remarked that "a planter in G who had whipped a great deal, at length got tired of it, and invented the following excellent method of punishment, which I saw practised while I was paying him a visit. The negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands made fast above his head, and his feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part of the body. The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were awakened in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so doleful that we feared he was dying. We went to him, and found him covered with a cold sweat, and almost gone. He could not have lived an hour longer. found the 'stocks' such an effective punishment, that it almost superseded the whip."

Mr.

"How much do you give your niggers for a task while hoeing cotton," inquired Mr. C of his neighbor Mr. H

H. "I give my men an acre and a quarter, and my

women an acre.

C. "Well, that is a fair task. Niggers do a heap better if they are drove pretty tight."

H. "Oh yes, I have driven mine into complete subordination. When I first bought them they were discontented, and wished me to sell them, but I soon whipped that out of them; and they now work very contentedly!" C. "Does Mary keep up with the rest?"

H. "No, she does'nt often finish the task alone; she has to get Sam to help her out after he has done his, to save her a whipping. There's no other way but to be severe with them.'

C. "No other, sir, if you favor a nigger you spoil him." "But," said I, "would not a systematical course of kind treatment be more effectual than so much whipping?"

H. "Oh sir, I always treat my niggers well. There are many who half starve their niggers, and give them nothing but corn to eat; but I always give mine meat. They do much better, and are not nigh so apt to steal

* Cotton is planted in drills about three feet apart, and is hilled like

corn.

and run away; besides, I think we ought to give them enough to eat, when they earn all we have."

C. "Oh yes, treat them well. But 'twont do to yield an inch to them," &c.

The conversation continued, during which I expressed my utter abhorrence of the whole system of slavery. I make little more reserve in expressing my opinions here than at the north, and I find people generally agree with me, that slavery is a curse to the southern country, and slavery in the abstract is wrong, but practical slavery is quite a different thing. I do not believe there have been five slaves freed in Florida since its cession to the United States. The Spanish laws favored emancipation, but as one old negro expressed it, "Nobody gets free since Spanish times." The laws of Florida, sanctioned by the United States general government, forbid emancipation. I mentioned to one negro that I had heard of a man in East Florida who allowed his slaves wages, and when they amounted to his price and interest, the slaves were free; says he, "that man was no American, I reckon. He must have been a Yankee or a Spaniard."

Another instrument of torture is sometimes used, how extensively I know not. The negro, or, in the case which came to my knowledge, the negress, was compelled to stand barefoot upon a block filled with sharp pegs and nails for two or three hours. In case of sickness, if the master or overseer thinks them seriously ill, they are taken care of, but their complaints are usually not much heeded. A physician told me that he was employed by a planter last winter to go to a plantation of his in the country, as many of the negroes were sick. Says he "I found them in a most miserable condition. The weather was cold, and the negroes were barefoot, with hardly enough of cotton clothing to cover their nakedness. Those who had huts to shelter them were obliged to build them nights and Sundays. Many were sick, and some had died. I had the sick taken to an older plantation of their master's, where they could be made comfortable, and they recovered. I directed that they should not go to work till after sunrise, and should not work in the rain till their health

became established.

>

But the overseer refusing to permit it, I declined attending on them farther. I was called," continued he, "by the overseer of another plantation, to see one of the men. I found him lying by the side of a log in great pain. I asked him how he did; 'Oh,' says he, 'I'm most dead, can live but little longer.' How long have you been sick? 'I've felt for more than six weeks as though I could hardly stir.' Why didn't you tell your master you was sick? I couldn't see my master, and the overseer always whips us when we complain; I could not stand a whipping.' I did all I could for the poor fellow, but his lungs were rotten. He died in three days from the time he left off work." The cruelty of that overseer is such that the negroes almost tremble at his name. Yet he gets a high salary, for he makes the largest crop of any other man in the neighborhood, though none but the hardiest negroes can stand it under him. "That man," says the Doctor, "would be hung in my country.” [He was a German.]

THE END.