“Sure I always takes care of me own niggers, an’ it’s himself that won’t be asked to do a stroke of work for a week, but have the same to git well in,” said the tyrant as the colonel and Captain were leaving.

“God be merciful to us, and spare us from the savages of mankind.  That scene, with its bloody accompaniment, will haunt me through life.  Do your laws allow such things?” said the Captain, evidently excited.

“To tell the truth, Captain,” said the colonel, “our laws do not reach them.  These men own a few negroes, which, being property, they exercise absolute control over; a negro’s testimony being invalid, gives them an unlimited power to abuse and inflict punishment; while, if a white man attempts to report such things, the cry of ‘abolitionist’ is raised against him, and so many stand ready to second the cry, that he must have a peculiar position if he does not prejudice his own interests and safety.  I am sorry it is so; but it is too true, and while it stigmatizes the system, it works against ourselves.  The evil is in the defects of the system, but the remedy is a problem with diverse and intricate workings, which, I own, are beyond my comprehension to solve.  The reason why I spoke to you as I did when you cut the pinions from the man’s hands, was to give you a word of precaution.  That is a bad man.  Negroes would rather be sold to a sugar plantation in Louisiana any time than be sold to him.  He soon works them down; in two years, fine, healthy fellows become lame, infirm, and sickly under him; he never gives them a holiday, and seldom a Sunday, and half-starves them at that.  If his feelings had been in a peculiar mood at the instant you cut that cord, and he had not labored under the fear of my presence, he would have raised a gang of his stamp, and with the circumstance of your being a stranger, the only alternative for your safety would have been in your leaving the city.”

“That vagabond has beaten the poor creature so that he will die; it can’t be otherwise,” said the Captain.

“Well, no; I think not, if he is well taken care of for a week or so; but it’s a chance if that brute gives him a week to get well.  When proud-flesh sets in, it is very tedious; that is the reason, so far as the law is concerned, that the lash was abolished and the paddle substituted—­the former mangled in the manner you saw just now, while the latter is more acute and bruises less.  I have seen a nigger taken from the paddle-frame apparently motionless and lifeless, very little bruised, and not much blood drawn; but he would come to and go to work in three or four days,” said the colonel as they passed along together.