sold to him. He soon works them down; in two years, fine,
healthy fellows become lame, infirm, and sickly under him; he never
gives them a holiday, and seldom a Sunday, and half-starves them at
that. If his feelings had been in a peculiar mood at the instant you
cut that cord, and he had not labored under the fear of my presence, he
would have raised a gang of his stamp, and with the circumstance of your
being a stranger, the only alternative for your safety would have been
in your leaving the city."

"That vagabond has beaten the poor creature so that he will die; it
can't be otherwise," said the Captain.

"Well, no; I think not, if he is well taken care of for a week or so;
but it's a chance if that brute gives him a week to get well. When
proud-flesh sets in, it is very tedious; that is the reason, so far
as the law is concerned, that the lash was abolished and the paddle
substituted--the former mangled in the manner you saw just now, while
the latter is more acute and bruises less. I have seen a nigger taken
from the paddle-frame apparently motionless and lifeless, very little
bruised, and not much blood drawn; but he would come to and go to work
in three or four days," said the colonel as they passed along together.

We would print the name of this brute in human form, that the world
might read it, were it not for an amiable wife and interesting family,
whose feelings we respect. We heard the cause of this cruel torture a
short time after, which was simply that he had stolen a few pounds
of nails, and this fomented the demon's rage. In the manner we have
described, this ferocious creature had kept his victim for more than two
hours, beating him with the knotty hoops taken from lime-casks. His rage
would move at intervals, like gusts of wind during a gale. Thus, while
his feelings raged highest, he would vent them upon the flesh of the
poor pinioned wretch; then he would stop, rest his arm, and pace the
ground from wall to wall, and as soon as his passion stormed, commence
again and strike the blows with all his power, at the same time keeping
the black boy standing with a bucket of water in his hand ready to pour
upon the wretch whenever signs of fainting appeared. Several times, when
the copious shower came over him, it filled his mouth, so that his cries
resounded with a gurgling, death-like noise, that made every sensation
chill to hear it. During this space of time, he inflicted more than
three hundred blows