sometimes merely as preventives of escape, for the greater security of their ‘property’.  Iron collars, chains, &c. are put upon slaves when they are driven or transported from one part of the country to another, in order to keep them from running away.  Similar measures are often resorted to upon plantations.  When the master or owner suspects a slave of plotting an escape, an iron collar with long ‘horns,’ or a bar of iron, or a ball and chain, are often fastened upon him, for the double purpose of retarding his flight, should he attempt it, and of serving as an easy means of detection.

Another inhuman method of marking slaves, so that they may be easily described and detected when they escape, is called cropping.  In the preceding advertisements, the reader will perceive a number of cases, in which the runaway is described as ‘cropt,’ or a ’notch cut in the ear, or a part or the whole of the ear cut off,’ &c.

Two years and a half since, the writer of this saw a letter, then just received by Mr. Lewis Tappan, of New York, containing a negro’s ear cut off close to the head.  The writer of the letter, who signed himself Thomas Oglethorpe, Montgomery, Alabama, sent it to Mr. Tappan as ‘a specimen of a negro’s ears,’ and desired him to add it to his ‘collection.’

Another method of marking slaves, is by drawing out or breaking off one or two front teeth—­commonly the upper ones, as the mark would in that case be the more obvious.  An instance of this kind the reader will recall in the testimony of Sarah M. Grimke, page 30, and of which she had personal knowledge; being well acquainted both with the inhuman master, (a distinguished citizen of South Carolina,) by whose order the brutal deed was done, and with the poor young girl whose mouth was thus barbarously mutilated, to furnish a convenient mark by which to describe her in case of her elopement, as she had frequently run away.

The case stated by Miss G. serves to unravel what, to one uninitiated, seems quite a mystery:  i.e. the frequency with which, in the advertisements of runaway slaves published in southern papers, they are described as having one or two front teeth out.  Scores of such advertisements are in southern papers now on our table.  We will furnish the reader with a dozen or two.

Jesse Debruhl, sheriff, Richland District, “Columbia (S.C.) Telescope,” Feb. 24, 1839.

“Committed to jail, Ned, about 25 years of age, has lost his two upper front teeth.”

Mr. John Hunt, Black Water Bay, “Pensacola (Ga.) Gazette,” October 14, 1837.

“100 DOLLARS REWARD, for Perry, one under front tooth missing, aged 23 years.”

Mr. John Frederick, Branchville, Orangeburgh District, S.C.  “Charleston (S.C.) Courier,” June 12, 1837.

“10 DOLLARS REWARD, for Mary, one or two upper teeth out, about 25 years old.”