the way of indulgence or favor." It is shown also by
the direct testimony recorded above, of slaveholders and others, in
all parts of the slaveholding south and west, that the general
allowance on plantations is corn or meal and salt merely. To this
there are doubtless many exceptions, but they are _only_ exceptions;
the number of slaveholders who furnish meat for their _field-hands_,
is small, in comparison with the number of those who do not. The
house slaves, that is, the cooks, chambermaids, waiters, &c.,
generally get some meat every day; the remainder bits and bones of
their masters' tables. But that the great body of the slaves, those
that compose the field gangs, whose labor and exposure, and consequent
exhaustion, are vastly greater than those of house slaves, toiling as
they do from day light till dark, in the fogs of the early morning,
under the scorchings of mid-day, and amid the damps of evening, are
_in general_ provided with _no meat_, is abundantly established by the
preceding testimony.

Now we do not say that meat _is necessary_ to sustain men under hard
and long continued labor, nor that it is _not_. This is not a treatise
on dietetics; but it is a notorious fact, that the medical faculty in
this country, with very few exceptions, do most strenuously insist
that it is necessary; and that working men in all parts of the country
do _believe_ that meat is indispensable to sustain them, even those
who work within doors, and only ten hours a day, every one knows.
Further, it is notorious, that the slaveholders themselves _believe_
the daily use of meat to be absolutely necessary to the comfort, not
merely of those who labor, but of those who are idle, as is proved by
the fact of meat being a part of the daily ration of food provided for
convicts in the prisons, in every one of the slave states, except in
those rare cases where meat is expressly prohibited, and the convict
is, by _way of extra punishment_ confined to bread and water; he is
occasionally, and for a little time only, confined to bread and water;
that is, to the _ordinary diet_ of slaves, with this difference in
favor of the convict, his bread is made for him, whereas the slave is
forced to pound or grind his own corn and make his own bread, when
exhausted with toil.

The preceding testimony shows also, that _vegetables_ form generally
no part of the slaves' allowance. The _sole_ food of the majority is
_corn_: at every meal--from day to day-