5.  There is an unjustifiable inequality in the apprentice laws, which was pointed out by one of the special magistrates.  The master is punishable only for cruelty or corporeal inflictions, whereas the apprentice is punishable for a variety of offences, such as idleness, stealing, insubordination, insolence, &c.  The master may be as insolent and abusive as he chooses to be, and the slave can have no redress.

6.  Hard labor, solitary confinement, and the treadmill, are the principal modes of punishment.  Shaving the head is sometimes resorted to.  A very sever punishment frequently adopted, is requiring the apprentice to make up for the time during which he is confined.  If he is committed for ten working days, he must give the master ten successive Saturdays.

This last regulation is particularly oppressive and palpably unjust.  It matters not how slight the offence may have been, it is discretionary with the special magistrate to mulct the apprentice of his Saturdays.  This provision really would appear to have been made expressly for the purpose of depriving the apprentices of their own time.  It is a direct inducement to the master to complain.  If the apprentice has been absent from his work but an hour, the magistrate may sentence him to give a whole day in return; consequently the master is encouraged to mark the slightest omission, and to complain of it whether it was unavoidable or not.

THE DESIGN OF THE APPRENTICESHIP.—­It is a serious question with a portion of the colonists, whether or not the apprenticeship was originally designed as a preparation for freedom.  This however was the professed object with its advocates, and it was on the strength of this plausible pretension, doubtless, that the measure was carried through.  We believe it is pretty well understood, both in England and the colonies; that it was mainly intended as an additional compensation to the planters.  The latter complained that the twenty millions of pounds was but a pittance of the value of their slaves, and to drown their cries about robbery and oppression this system of modified slavery was granted to them, that they might, for a term of years, enjoy the toil of the negro without compensation.  As a mockery to the hopes of the slaves this system was called an apprenticeship, and it was held out to them as a needful preparatory stage for them to pass through, ere they could rightly appreciate the blessings of entire freedom.  It was not wonderful that they should be slow to apprehend the necessity of serving a six years’ apprenticeship, at a business which they had been all their lives employed in.  It is not too much to say that it was a grand cheat—­a national imposture at the expense of the poor victims of oppression, whom, with benevolent pretences, it offered up a sacrifice to cupidity and power.