s horse, and, drawing a pistol, shot
the negro dead at his feet."

The _Richmond Reporter_, a contemporary of the _Times_, commented on
this impious affair as follows:--"Mr. Taylor did what every man who has
the management of negroes ought to do; enforce obedience, or kill them."

It is the practice of the inhabitants of Charleston, in common, I
believe, with all owners of slaves in towns or cities in the slave
states, who have not employment sufficient for them at home, or when the
slave is a cripple, to send them out to seek their own maintenance. In
such cases the slave is compelled to give an account of what he has
earned during the week, at his owner's house, where he attends on
Saturday evenings for the purpose. A fixed sum is generally demanded, in
proportion to the average value of such labour at the time. I was
informed that it frequently happens, that the master exacts the utmost
the slave can earn, so that the miserable pittance left is scarcely
sufficient to sustain nature; this, no doubt, accounts for the haggard,
care-worn appearance of such labourers, for, with few exceptions, I
found hands thus sent out, more miserably clad and less hale than the
common run of slaves. On the other hand, if a slave is a good
handicraftsman, he is able to earn more than his master demands; such
instances are, however, rare. These are the men who, by dint of hard
work and thrifty habits, accumulate sufficient eventually to obtain
manumission. There is, in most cases, a strict eye kept on such hands,
and if the boon is attained, it is in general by stealthy means.

At my boarding-house in Charleston, I often saw negro laundresses who
called for linen; one of these in particular, I noticed, seemed to be in
habitual low spirits; on one occasion she appeared to be in unusual
distress, in consequence of one of the boarders leaving the house in her
debt. She said that her owner would certainly punish her if she did not
make up the required sum, and where to procure it she could not tell. I
was touched by her tale, and immediately opened a subscription amongst
the boarders in the house, and succeeded in collecting a trifle over the
amount she had lost; this I handed her, and she went on her way
rejoicing.

I was told by a Carolinian who lodged at this house, that the practice
of sending out slaves to earn money in the way I have described, has
been in vogue from time immemorial, and that it was such a profitable
mode of realiz