the volume of
blood be out of proportion to the expansibility and capacity of the
pulmonary organs. Hence it is most apt to occur precisely at, and
immediately following, that period of life known as matureness, when the
sanguineous system becomes fully developed and gains the mastery, so to
speak, over the lymphatic and nervous systems. With negroes, the
sanguineous never gains the mastery over the lymphatic and nervous
systems. Their digestive powers, like children, are strong, and their
secretions and excretions copious, excepting the urine, which is rather
scant. At the age of maturity they do not become dyspeptic and feeble
with softening and attenuation of the muscles, as among those white
people suffering the ills of a defective system of physical education,
and a want of a wholesome, nutritious diet.

Your correspondent asks, "_Do the slaves consume much sugar, or take rum
in intoxicating quantities?_"

They do not consume much sugar, but are occasionally supplied with
molasses. Their diet consists principally of pickled pork and corn
bread, rice, hominy, beans, peas, potatoes, yams, pumpkins and turnips.
Soups, tea, coffee and slops, are seldom used by those in health, and
they object to all such articles of diet, as making them weak. They
prefer the fattest pork to the lean. In the Atlantic States salted fish
is substituted for or alternated with pork--the shad, mackerel and
herring, principally the latter. In Cuba pickled beef is used, but they
prefer pork. Their diet is of the most nutritious kind, and they will
not labor with much effect on any other than a strong, rich diet. With
very few exceptions, they do not take rum or other intoxicating drinks,
except as a medicine, or in holiday times. Something equivalent to the
"_Maine Liquor Law_," (which you can explain to your correspondent,) has
long been in practical operation on all well regulated Southern
plantations. The experience of two centuries testifies to the advantages
of restraining the black population, _by arbitrary power_, from the free
use of intoxicating poisons. Man has no better natural right to poison
himself or his neighbor, than to maim, wound or kill himself or his
neighbor. In regard to intoxicating drinks, the negroes of the South are
under wiser laws than any other people in the Union--those of Maine
excepted. But these wise unwritten laws do not so well protect those
negroes who reside in or near towns and villages, and are not und