7. Incorrigible slaves.  On most of the large plantations, there are, more or less, incorrigible slaves,—­that is, slaves who will not be profitable to their masters—­and from whom torture can extort little but defiance.[25] These are frequently slaves of uncommon minds, who feel so keenly the wrongs of slavery that their proud spirits spurn their chains and defy their tormentors.

[Footnote 25:  Advertisements like the following are not unfrequent in the southern papers.

From the Elizabeth (N.C.) Phenix, Jan. 5, 1839. “The subscriber offers for sale his blacksmith NAT, 28 years of age, and remarkably large and likely.  The only cause of my selling him is I CANNOT CONTROL HIM. Hertford, Dec.5, 1838. J. GORDON.”]

They have commonly great sway over the other slaves, their example is contagious, and their influence subversive of ‘plantation discipline.’  Consequently they must be made a warning to others.  It is for the interest of the masters (at least they believe it to be) to put upon such slaves iron collars and chains, to brand and crop them; to disfigure, lacerate, starve and torture them—­in a word, to inflict upon them such vengeance as shall strike terror into the other slaves.  To this class may be added the incorrigibly thievish and indolent; it would be for the interest of the masters to treat them with such severity as would deter others from following their example.

7. Runaways. When a slave has once runaway from his master and is caught, he is thenceforward treated with severity.  It is for the interest of the master to make an example of him, by the greatest privations and inflictions.

8. Hired slaves. It is for the interest of those who hire slaves to get as much out of them as they can; the temptation to overwork them is powerful.  If it be said that the master could, in that case, recover damages, the answer is, that damages would not be recoverable in law unless actual injury—­enough to impair the power of the slave to labor, be proved. And this ordinarily would be impossible, unless the slave has been worked so greatly beyond his strength as to produce some fatal derangement of the vital functions.  Indeed, as all who are familiar with such cases in southern courts well know, the proof of actual injury to the slave, so as to lessen his value, is exceedingly difficult to make out, and every hirer of slaves can overwork them, give them insufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and inflict upon them nameless cruelties with entire impunity.  We repeat then that it is for the interest of the hirer to push his slaves to their utmost strength, provided he does not drive them to such an extreme, that their constitutions actually give way under it, while in his hands.  The supreme court of Maryland has decided that, ’There must be at least a diminution of the faculty of the slave for bodily labor to warrant an action by the master.’—­1 Harris and Johnson’s Reports, 4.