that he had no question but there were numerous cases of flogging on the estates which never came to light.  The sufferers were afraid to inform against their masters, lest they should be treated still worse.  The opportunity which he gave them of coming, to him one day in the week for private advice, was the means of exposing many outrages which would otherwise he unheard of:  He observed that there were not a few whom he had liberated on account of the cruelty of their masters.

Captain H. stated that the apprentices were much disposed to purchase their freedom.  To obtain money to pay for themselves they practice the most severe economy and self-denial in the very few indulgences which the law grants them.  They sometimes resort to deception to depreciate their value with the appraisers.  He mentioned an instance of a man who lead for many years been an overseer on a large estate.  Wishing to purchase himself, and knowing that his master valued him very highly, he permitted his beard to grow; gave his face a wrinkled and haggard appearance, and bound a handkerchief about his head.  His clothes were suffered to become ragged and dirty, and he began to feign great weakness in his limbs, and to complain of a “misery all down his back.”  He soon appeared marked with all the signs of old age and decrepitude.  In this plight, and leaning on a stick, he hobbled up to the station-house one day, and requested to be appraised.  He was appraised at L10, which he immediately paid.  A short time afterwards, he engaged himself to a proprietor to manage a small estate for L30 per year in cash and his own maintenance, all at once grew vigorous again; and is prospering finely.  Many of the masters in turn practice deception to prevent the apprentices from buying themselves, or to make them pay the very highest sum for their freedom.  They extol their virtues—­they are every thing that is excellent and valuable—­their services on the estate are indispensable no one can fill their places.  By such misrepresentations they often get an exorbitant price for the remainder of the term—­more, sometimes, than they could have obtained for them for life while they were slaves.

From Captain H.’s we returned to the station-house, the keeper of which conducted us over the buildings, and showed us the cells of the prison.  The house contains the office and private room of the magistrate, and the guard-room, below, and chambers for the police men above.  There are sixteen solitary cells, and two large rooms for those condemned to hard labour—­one for females and the other for males.  There were at that time seven in the solitary cells, and twenty-four employed in labor on the roads.  This is more than usual.  The average number is twenty in all.  When it is considered that most of the commitments are for trivial offences, and that the district contains thirteen thousand apprentices, certainly we have grounds to conclude that the state of morals in Barbadoes is decidedly superior to that in our own country.