rself, he was only chastising one of his
women. It appeared that three days previously her child had died on
the road, and been thrown into a hole or crevice in the mountain, and
a few stones thrown over it; and the mother weeping for her child was
chastised by her master, and told by him, she 'should have something
to cry for.' The name of this man I can give if called for.

"When engaged in this journey I spent about one month with my
relations in Virginia. It being shortly after new year, _the time of
hiring_ was over; but I saw the pounds, and the scaffolds which
remained of the pounds, in which the slaves had been penned up"

M. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, of Quincy, Illinois, who lived in the
southwestern slave states a number of years, has furnished the
following statement.

"The great mass of the slaves are under drivers and overseers. I never
saw an overseer without a whip; the whip usually carried is a short
loaded stock, with a heavy lash from five to six feet long. When they
whip a slave they make him pull off his shirt, if he has one, then
make him lie down on his face, and taking their stand at the length of
the lash, they inflict the punishment. Whippings are so _universal_
that a negro that has not been whipped is talked of in all the region
as a wonder. By whipping I do not mean a few lashes across the
shoulders, but a set flogging, and generally _lying down._

"On sugar plantations generally, and on some cotton plantations, they
have negro drivers, who are in such a degree responsible for their
gang, that if they are at fault, the driver is whipped. The result is,
the gang are constantly driven by him to the extent of the influence
of the lash; and it is uniformly the case that gangs dread a negro
driver more than a white overseer.

"I spent a winter on widow Culvert's plantation, near Rodney,
Mississippi, but was not in a situation to see extraordinary
punishments. Bellows, the overseer, for a trifling offence, took one
of the slaves, stripped him, and with a piece of burning wood applied
to his posteriors, burned him cruelly; while the poor wretch screamed
in the greatest agony. The principal preparation for punishment that
Bellows had, was single handcuffs made of iron, with chains, by which
the offender could be chained to four stakes on the ground. These are
very common in all the lower country. I noticed one slave on widow
Calvert's plantation, who was whipped from twenty-five to fifty lashes
every