“Cruelties, said he, are so common, I hardly know what to relate.  But one fact occurs to me just at this time, that happened in the village where I live.  The circumstances are these.  A colored man, a slave, ran away.  As he was crossing Kentucky river, a white man, who suspected him, attempted to stop him.  The negro resisted.  The white man procured help, and finally succeeded in securing him.  He then wreaked his vengeance on him for resisting—­flogging him till he was not able to walk.  They then put him on a horse, and came on with him ten miles to Nicholasville.  When they entered the village, it was noticed that he sat upon his horse like a drunken man.  It was a very hot day; and whilst they were taking some refreshment, the negro sat down upon the ground, under the shade.  When they ordered him to go, he made several efforts before he could get up; and when he attempted to mount the horse, his strength was entirely insufficient.  One of the men struck him, and with an oath ordered him to get on the horse without any more fuss.  The negro staggered back a few steps, fell down, and died.  I do not know that any notice was ever taken of it.”

Rev. COLEMAN S. HODGES, a native and still a resident of Western Virginia, gave the following testimony at the same meeting.

“I have frequently seen the mistress of a family in Virginia, with whom I was well acquainted, beat the woman who performed the kitchen work, with a stick two feet and a half long, and nearly as thick as my wrist; striking her over the head, and across the small of the back, as she was bent over at her work, with as much spite as you would a snake, and for what I should consider no offence at all.  There lived in this same family a young man, a slave, who was in the habit of running away.  He returned one time after a week’s absence.  The master took him into the barn, stripped him entirely naked, tied him up by his hands so high that he could not reach the floor, tied his feet together, and put a small rail between his legs, so that he could not avoid the blows, and commenced whipping him.  He told me that he gave him five hundred lashes.  At any rate, he was covered with wounds from head to foot.  Not a place as big as my hand but what was cut.  Such things as these are perfectly common all over Virginia; at least so far as I am acquainted.  Generally, planters avoid punishing their slaves before strangers.”

Mr. CALVIN H. TATE, of Missouri, whose father and brothers were slaveholders, related the following at the same meeting.  The plantation on which it occurred, was in the immediate neighborhood of his father’s.