urning a key a bar rises from C to D by means of a screw;
and the pressure becomes very painful. By turning it further, the blood
is made to start; and by taking away the key, as at E, the tortured
person is left in agony, without the means of helping himself, or
being helped by others. This is applied in case of obstinacy, at the
discretion of the captain. I, F, is a speculum oris. The dotted lines
represent it when shut; the black lines when open. It opens at G, H,
by a screw below with a knob at the end of it. This instrument was used
by surgeons to wrench open the mouth in case of lock-jaw. It is used in
slave-ships to compel the negroes to take food; because a loss to the
owners would follow their persevering attempts to die. K represents the
manner of stowing in a slave-ship.

[Illustration: Stowing Slaves]

According to Clarkson's estimate, about two and a half out of a
hundred of human beings die annually, in the ordinary course of nature,
including infants and the aged; but in an African voyage, where few
babes and no old people are admitted, so that those shipped are at
the firmest period of life, the annual mortality is forty-three in a
hundred. In vessels that sail from Bonny, Benin, and the Calabars,
whence a large proportion of slaves are brought, this mortality is so
much increased by various causes, that eighty-six in a hundred die
yearly. He adds, "It is a destruction, which if general but for ten
years, would depopulate the world, and extinguish the human race."

We next come to the influence of this diabolical system on the
_slave-owner_; and here I shall be cautioned that I am treading on
delicate ground, because our own countrymen are slaveholders. But I am
yet to learn that wickedness is any the better for being our own. Let
the truth be spoken--and let those abide its presence who can.

The following is the testimony of Jefferson, who had good opportunities
for observation, and who certainly had no New-England prejudices: "There
must, doubtless, be an unhappy influence on the manners of the people,
produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce
between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous
passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading
submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it;
for man is an imitative animal. The parent storms; the child looks on,
catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same