And now, ye who have nerves-let them not be shaken; let not your emotions rise, ye who have souls, and love the blessings of liberty; let not mothers nor fathers weep over democracy’s wrongs; nor let man charge us with picturing the horrors of a black romance when we introduce the spectacle in the room of punishments:  such, be it known, is not our business, nor would we trifle unjustly with the errors of society; but, if chivalry have blushes, we do not object to their being used here.  The keeper, followed by Blowers, enters a small room at the further end of the passage.  It is some sixteen feet long by twelve wide, and proportionately high of ceiling.  The pale light of a tallow candle, suspended from the ceiling by a wire, and from which large flakes of the melted grease lay cone-like on the pine floor, discloses the gloom, and discovers hanging from the walls, grim with smoke, sundry curious caps, cords, leathern cats, and the more improved paddles of wood, with flat blades.  The very gloom of the place might excite the timid; but the reflection of how many tortures it has been the scene, and the mysterious stillness pervading its singularly decorated walls, add still more to increase apprehension.  A plank, some two feet wide, and raised a few inches, stretches across the floor, and is secured at each end with cleets.  About midway of this are ropes securing the victim’s feet; and through the dim light is disclosed the half nude body of our fair girl, suspended by the wrists, which are clasped in bands of cord, that, being further secured to a pulley block, is hauled taut by a tackle.  Suddenly the wretched woman gives vent to her feelings, and in paroxysms of grief sways her poor body to and fro, imploring mercy!  “Nay, master! think that I am a woman-that I have a heart to feel and bleed; that I am a mother and a wife, though a slave.  Let your deeds be done quickly, or end me and save me this shame!” she supplicates, as the bitter, burning anguish of her goaded soul gives out its flood of sorrow.  Chivalry, forsooth, lies cold and unmoved-Blowers has no relish for such inconsistency;—­such whinings, he says, will not serve southern principles.  The mulatto attendant has secured the fall, and stands a few feet behind Blowers and the keeper, as that functionary says, laying his coarse hands on the woman’s loins, “How silky!” The mulatto man shakes his head, revengefully, making a grimace, as Broadman, having selected the smallest paddle (reminding us of the curious sympathy now budding between the autocratic knout and democratic lash) again addresses Blowers.  “I doubt, sir,” he says, “if the woman stand a blow.  Necessity ’s a hard master, sir; and in this very act is the test more trying than I have ever known it.  I dissemble myself when I see a wretch of fine flesh-a woman with tender senses, in distress, and I am made the instrument of adding to her suffering.  Indeed, sir, when I contemplate the cause of such wretchedness, and the poverty forcing me to remain in this situation, no imagination can represent the horror of my feelings.”