d to,
remains, however, to be told. So heinous in a negro, is the crime of
lifting his hand in opposition to a white man in South Carolina, that
the law adjudges that the offending member shall be forfeited. This is,
or was, quite as inexorable as the one I have before spoken of, and when
in Charleston, I frequently, amongst the flocks of negroes passing and
repassing, saw individuals with one hand only. Like the administration
of miscalled justice on negroes in all slave-holding states in America,
the process was summary; the offender was arrested, brought before the
bench of sitting magistrates, and on the _ex parte_[A] statement of his
accuser, condemned to mutilation, being at once marched out to the rear
of the building and the hand lopped off on a block fixed there for the
purpose. I noticed a block and axe myself in the yard of a building near
the town-hall, and on looking at them closely, saw they were stained
almost black, with what I have little hesitation in saying was human
blood. My conductor, however, tried to divert my attention from the
object, and knowing I was an Englishman, refused to enter on the
subject.

[FOOTNOTE A: The writer was assured, when in Charleston, that this was
the case in five out of every six cases.]

Another of the many cruel laws put in force after the _emeute_ of the
negroes, was to prohibit any coloured person from walking on the
pavements, and forcing all males to salute every white they met. These
distinctions, although falling into disuse, are not even yet abolished,
but still, with many others equally odious, disgrace the Carolinean
statute book. I saw several negroes from the plantation districts,
walking in the road instead of on the pavement, in accordance with this
law, touching their hats to every white passer-by; they were
consequently obliged to be continually lifting their hands to their
heads, for they passed white people at every step. Although I believe
no punishment is now enforced for the omission of this humiliating
homage to colour, the men I have referred to were doubtless afraid to
disregard the ceremony.

A partiality exists in every part of America for music; indeed, so
strongly is this developed, that in almost all the towns, and even in
some hamlets in the western states, subscription bands are kept
up--these play every evening, when the weather admits, in the centre of
the public square, the citizens the while promenading round with their
wives and f