“The overseer told me, he was so addicted to running away, it did not do any good to whip him for it.  He said he kept this gag constantly on him, and intended to do so as long as he was on the plantation:  so that, if he ran away, he could not eat, and would starve to death.  The slave asked for drink in my presence; and the overseer made him lie down on his back, and turned water on his face two or three feet high, in order to torment him, as he could not swallow a drop.—­The slave then asked permission to go to the river; which being granted, he thrust his face and head entirely under the water, that being the only way he could drink with his gag on.  The gag was taken off when he took his food, and then replaced afterwards.”

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MRS. SOPHIA LITTLE, of Newport, Rhode Island, daughter of Hon. Asher Robbins, senator in Congress for that state.

“There was lately found, in the hold of a vessel engaged in the southern trade, by a person who was clearing it out, an iron collar, with three horns projecting from it.  It seems that a young female slave, on whose slender neck was riveted this fiendish instrument of torture, ran away from her tyrant, and begged the captain to bring her off with him.  This the captain refused to do; but unriveted the collar from her neck, and threw it away in the hold of the vessel.  The collar is now at the anti-slavery office, Providence.  To the truth of these facts Mr. William H. Reed, a gentleman of the highest moral character, is ready to vouch.

“Mr. Reed is in possession of many facts of cruelty witnessed by persons of veracity; but these witnesses are not willing to give their names.  One case in particular he mentioned.  Speaking with a certain captain, of the state of the slaves at the south, the captain contended that their punishments were often very lenient; and, as an instance of their excellent clemency, mentioned, that in one instance, not wishing to whip a slave, they sent him to a blacksmith, and had an iron band fastened around him, with three long projections reaching above his head; and this he wore some time.”

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. JONATHON F. BALDWIN, of Lorain county, Ohio.  Mr. B. was formerly a merchant in Massillon, Ohio, and an elder in the Presbyterian Church there.

“Dear Brother,—­In conversation with Judge Lyman, of Litchfield county, Connecticut, last June, he stated to me, that several years since he was in Columbia, South Carolina, and observing a colored man lying on the floor of a blacksmith’s shop, as he was passing it, his curiosity led him in.  He learned the man was a slave and rather unmanageable.  Several men were attempting to detach from his ankle an iron which had been bent around it.