“A FIELD-HAND SHOT.—­A gentleman named Ball, overseer to Mr. Edward T. Taylor, finding it necessary to chastise a field-hand, attempted to do so in the field.  The negro resisted, and made fight, and, being the stronger of the two, gave the overseer a beating, and then betook himself to the woods.  Mr. Ball, as soon as he could do so, mounted his horse, and, proceeding to Mr. Taylor’s residence, informed him of what had occurred.  Taylor, in company with Ball, repaired to the corn-field, to which the negro had returned, and demanded to know the cause of his conduct.  The negro replied that Ball attempted to flog him, and he would not submit to it.  Taylor said he should, and ordered him to cross his hands, at the same time directing Ball to seize him.  Ball did so, but perceiving the negro had attempted to draw a knife, told Mr. Taylor of it, who immediately sprang from his horse, and, drawing a pistol, shot the negro dead at his feet.”

The Richmond Reporter, a contemporary of the Times, commented on this impious affair as follows:—­“Mr. Taylor did what every man who has the management of negroes ought to do; enforce obedience, or kill them.”

It is the practice of the inhabitants of Charleston, in common, I believe, with all owners of slaves in towns or cities in the slave states, who have not employment sufficient for them at home, or when the slave is a cripple, to send them out to seek their own maintenance.  In such cases the slave is compelled to give an account of what he has earned during the week, at his owner’s house, where he attends on Saturday evenings for the purpose.  A fixed sum is generally demanded, in proportion to the average value of such labour at the time.  I was informed that it frequently happens, that the master exacts the utmost the slave can earn, so that the miserable pittance left is scarcely sufficient to sustain nature; this, no doubt, accounts for the haggard, care-worn appearance of such labourers, for, with few exceptions, I found hands thus sent out, more miserably clad and less hale than the common run of slaves.  On the other hand, if a slave is a good handicraftsman, he is able to earn more than his master demands; such instances are, however, rare.  These are the men who, by dint of hard work and thrifty habits, accumulate sufficient eventually to obtain manumission.  There is, in most cases, a strict eye kept on such hands, and if the boon is attained, it is in general by stealthy means.

At my boarding-house in Charleston, I often saw negro laundresses who called for linen; one of these in particular, I noticed, seemed to be in habitual low spirits; on one occasion she appeared to be in unusual distress, in consequence of one of the boarders leaving the house in her debt.  She said that her owner would certainly punish her if she did not make up the required sum, and where to procure it she could not tell.  I was touched by her tale, and immediately opened a subscription amongst the boarders in the house, and succeeded in collecting a trifle over the amount she had lost; this I handed her, and she went on her way rejoicing.