immediately; his fee
is half a dollar. Widows and other females, having negroes, get them
whipped in this way. Many mistresses will insist on the slave who has
been flogged begging pardon for her fault on her knees, and thanking
her for the correction.

A white man, who lived near me in Camden county, Thomas Evidge,
followed this business. He was also sworn whipper at the court house.
A law was passed that any white man detected in stealing should be
whipped. Mr. Dozier frequently missed hogs, and flogged many of his
negroes on suspicion of stealing them; when he could not, in his
suspicions, fix on any one in particular, he flogged them all round,
saying that he was sure of having punished the right one. Being one
day shooting in his woods, he heard the report of another gun, and
shortly after met David Evidge, the nephew of the whipper, with one of
his hogs on his back, which had just been shot. David was sent to
prison, convicted of the theft, and sentenced to be flogged. His
uncle, who vapored about greatly in flogging slaves, and taunted them
with unfeeling speeches while he did it, could not bear the thought of
flogging his nephew, and hired a man to do it. The person pitched on
chanced to be a sailor; he laid it well on the thief; pleased enough
were the colored people to see a white back for the first time
subjected to the lash.

Another man of the same business, George Wilkins, did no greater
credit to the trade. Mr. Carnie, on Western Branch, Virginia, often
missed corn from his barn. Wilkins, the whipper, was very officious in
pointing out this slave and that, as very likely to be the thief; with
nothing against them but his insinuations, some were very severely
punished, being flogged by this very Wilkins, and others, at his
instigation, were sold away. One night, Mr. Carnie, unknown to his
colored people, set a steel trap in the barn; some of the negroes,
passing the barn before morning, saw Wilkins standing there, but were
not aware he was caught. They called the master, that he might seize
the thief before he could escape; he came and teased Wilkins during
the night; in the morning, he exposed him to the view of the
neighbors, and then set him at liberty without further punishment.

The very severe punishments to which slaves are subjected, for
trifling offences, or none at all, their continued liability to all
kinds of ill usage, without a chance of redress, and the agonizing
feelings they endure at