[Footnote 10:  The fact that Mr. Paulding, in the reprint of these “Letters,” in 1835, struck out this passage with all others disparaging to slavery and its supporters, does not impair the force of his testimony, however much it may sink the man.  Nor will the next generation regard with any more reverence, his character as a prophet, because in the edition of 1835, two years after the American Antislavery Society was formed, and when its auxiliaries were numbered by hundreds, he inserted a prediction that such movements would be made at the North, with most disastrous results.  “Wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine!” Mr. Paulding has already been taught by Judge Jay, that he who aspires to the fame of an oracle, without its inspiration, must resort to other expedients to prevent detection, than the clumsy one of antedating his responses.]

III.  BRANDINGS, MAIMINGS, GUY-SHOT WOUNDS, &c.

The slaves are often branded with hot irons, pursued with fire arms and shot, hunted with dogs and torn by them, shockingly maimed with knives, dirks, &c.; have their ears cut off, their eyes knocked out, their bones dislocated and broken with bludgeons, their fingers and toes cut off, their faces and other parts of their persons disfigured with scars and gashes, besides those made with the lash.

We shall adopt, under this head, the same course as that pursued under previous ones,—­first give the testimony of the slaveholders themselves, to the mutilations, &c. by copying their own graphic descriptions of them, in advertisements published under their own names, and in newspapers published in the slave states, and, generally, in their own immediate vicinity.  We shall, as heretofore, insert only so much of each advertisement as will be necessary to make the point intelligible.

Mr. Micajah Ricks, Nash County, North Carolina, in the Raleigh “Standard,” July 18, 1838.

“Ranaway, a negro woman and two children; a few days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face,_ I tried to make the letter M._”

Mr. Asa B. Metcalf, Kingston, Adams Co.  Mi. in the “Natchez Courier;’ June 15, 1832.

“Ranaway Mary, a black woman, has a scar on her back and right arm near the shoulder, caused by a rifle ball.”

Mr. William Overstreet, Benton, Yazoo Co.  Mi. in the “Lexington (Kentucky) Observer,” July 22, 1838.

“Ranaway a negro man named Henry, his left eye out, some scars from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the whip.”

Mr. R.P.  Carney, Clark Co.  Ala., in the Mobile Register, Dec. 22, 1832

One hundred dollars reward for a negro fellow Pompey, 40 years old, he is branded on the left jaw.

Mr. J. Guyler, Savannah Georgia, in the “Republican,” April 12, 1837.