[Footnote A:  In regard to the use of bloodhounds, for the recapture of runaway slaves, we insert the following from the New-York Evangelist, being an extract of a letter from Natchez (Miss.) under date of January 31, 1835:  “An instance was related to me in Claiborne County, in Mississippi.  A runaway was heard about the house in the night.  The hound was put upon his track, and in the morning was found watching the dead body of the negro.  The dogs are trained to this service when young.  A negro is directed to go into the woods and secure himself upon a tree.  When sufficient time has elapsed for doing this, the hound is put upon his track.  The blacks are compelled to worry them until they make them their implacable enemies:  and it is common to meet with dogs which will take no notice of whites, though entire strangers, but will suffer no blacks beside the house servants to enter the yard.”]

* * * * *

From the foregoing evidence on the part of slaveholders themselves, we gather the following facts: 

1.  That perfect obedience is required of the slave—­that he is made to feel that there is no appeal from his master.

2.  That the authority of the master is only maintained by fear—­a “reign of terror.”

3.  That “the economy of slavery is to get all you can from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition.”

4.  That runaway slaves may be shot down with impunity by any white person.

5.  That masters offer rewards for “killing” their slaves, “so that they may see them!”

6.  That slaves are branded with hot irons, and very much scarred with the whip.

7.  That iron collars, with projecting prongs, rendering it almost impossible for the wearer to lie down, are fastened upon the necks of women.

8.  That the LASH is the MAIN SUPPORT of the slaveholder’s authority:  but, that the stocks are “a powerful auxiliary” to his government.

9.  That runaway slaves are chased with dogs—­men hunted like beasts of prey.

Such is American Slavery in practice.

The testimony thus far adduced is only that of the slaveholder and wrong-doer himself:  the admission of men who have a direct interest in keeping out of sight the horrors of their system.  It is besides no voluntary admission.  Having “framed iniquity by law,” it is out of their power to hide it.  For the recovery of their runaway property, they are compelled to advertise in the public journals, and that it may be identified, they are under the necessity of describing the marks of the whip on the backs of women, the iron collars about the neck—­the gun-shot wounds, and the traces of the branding-iron.  Such testimony must, in the nature of things, be partial and incomplete.  But for a full revelation of the secrets of the prison-house, we must look to the slave himself.  The Inquisitors of Goa and Madrid never disclosed the peculiar atrocities of their “hall of horrors.”  It was the escaping heretic, with his swollen and disjointed limbs, and bearing about him the scars of rack and fire, who exposed them to the gaze and abhorrence of Christendom.