Slave owners are bound to give their slaves three meals a-day, and the substance thereof must be eleven ounces of meat or salt-fish, four ounces of bread, and farinaceous vegetables equal to six plantains; besides this, they are bound to give them two suits of clothes—­all specified—­yearly.  Alas! how appropriate is the slang phrase “Don’t you wish you may get ’em?” So beautifully motherly is Spain regarding her slaves, that the very substance of infants’ clothes under three years of age is prescribed; another substance from three to six; then comes an injunction that from six to fourteen the girls are to be shirted and the boys breeched.  I am sure this super-parental solicitude upon the part of the Government must be admitted to be most touching.  By another regulation, the working time is limited from nine to ten hours daily, except in the harvest or sugar season, during which time the working hours are eighteen a-day.  No slave under sixteen or over sixty can be employed on task-work, or at any age at a work not suited to his or her strength and sex.

Old slaves must be kept by their master, and cannot be freed for the purpose of getting rid of the support of them.  Upon a plantation, the houses must be built on a dry position, well ventilated, and the sexes kept apart, and a proper hospital provided for them.  By another law, marriage is inculcated on moral grounds, and the master of the slave is required to purchase the wife, so that they may both be under one roof; if he declines the honour, then the owner of the wife is to purchase the husband; and if that fails, a third party is to buy both:  failing all these efforts, the law appears non-plused, and leaves their fate to Providence.  If the wife has any children under three years of age, they must be sold with her.  The law can compel an owner to sell any slave upon whom he may be proved to have exercised cruelty; should any party offer him the price he demands, he may close the bargain at once, but if they do not agree, his value is to be appraised by two arbiters, one chosen by each party, and if either decline naming an arbiter, a law officer acts ex officio.  Any slave producing fifty dollars (ten pounds) as a portion of his ransom-money, the master is obliged to fix a price upon him, at which his ransom may be purchased; he then becomes a coartado, and whatever sums he can save his master is bound to receive in part payment, and, should he be sold, the price must not exceed the price originally named, after subtracting therefrom the amount he has advanced for his ransom.  Each successive purchaser must buy him subject to these conditions.  In all disputes as to original price or completion of the ransom, the Government appoints a law officer on behalf of the slave.  The punishments of the slave are imprisonment, stocks, &c.; when the lash is used, the number of stripes is limited to twenty-five.