John H. Hand, jailor, parish of West Feliciana, La., in the St.  “Francisville Journal,” July 6, 1837

“Committed to jail, a negro boy named John, about 17 years old—­his back badly marked with the whip, his upper lip and chin severely bruised."

The preceding are extracts from advertisements published in southern papers, mostly in the year 1838.  They are the mere samples of hundreds of similar ones published during the same period, with which, as the preceding are quite sufficient to show the commonness of inhuman floggings in the slave states, we need not burden the reader.

The foregoing testimony is, as the reader perceives, that of the slaveholders themselves, voluntarily certifying to the outrages which their own hands have committed upon defenceless and innocent men and women, over whom they have assumed authority.  We have given to their testimony precedence over that of all other witnesses, for the reason that when men testify against themselves they are under no temptation to exaggerate.

We will now present the testimony of a large number of individuals, with their names and residences,—­persons who witnessed the inflictions to which they testify.  Many of them have been slaveholders, and all residents for longer or shorter periods in slave states.

Rev. JOHN H. CURTISS, a native of Deep Creek, Norfolk county, Virginia, now a local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Portage co., Ohio, testifies as follows:—­

“In 1829 or 30, one of my father’s slaves was accused of taking the key to the office and stealing four or five dollars:  he denied it.  A constable by the name of Hull was called; he took the Negro, very deliberately tied his hands, and whipped him till the blood ran freely down his legs.  By this time Hull appeared tired, and stopped; he then took a rope, put a slip noose around his neck, and told the negro he was going to kill him, at the same time drew the rope and began whipping:  the Negro fell; his cheeks looked as though they would burst with strangulation.  Hull whipped and kicked him, till I really thought he was going to kill him; when he ceased, the negro was in a complete gore of blood from head to foot.”

Mr. DAVID HAWLEY, a class-leader in the Methodist Church, at St. Alban’s, Licking county, Ohio, who moved from Kentucky to Ohio in 1831, testifies as follows:—­

“In the year 1821 or 2, I saw a slave hung for killing his master.  The master had whipped the slave’s mother to DEATH, and, locking him in a room, threatened him with the same fate; and, cowhide in hand, had begun the work, when the slave joined battle and slew the master.”

SAMUEL ELLISON, a member of the Society of Friends, formerly of Southampton county, Virginia, now of Marlborough, Stark county, Ohio, gives the following testimony:—­