of the Presbyterian Church in Chatham, Illinois.

"I was born and have lived most of my life in the slave states, mainly
in the village of Huntsville, Alabama, where my parents still reside.
I seldom went to a _plantation_, and as my visits were confined almost
exclusively to the families of professing Christians, my _personal_
knowledge of slavery, was consequently a knowledge of its _fairest_
side, (if fairest may be predicated of foul.)

"There was one plantation just opposite my father's house in the
suburbs of Huntsville, belonging to Judge Smith, formerly a Senator in
Congress from South Carolina, now of Huntsville. The name of his
overseer was Tune. I have often seen him flogging the slaves in the
field, and have often heard their cries. Sometimes, too, I have met
them with the tears streaming down their faces, and the marks of the
whip, ('whelks,') on their bare necks and shoulders. Tune was so
severe in his treatment, that his employer dismissed him after two or
three years, lest, it was said, he should kill off all the slaves. But
he was immediately employed by another planter in the neighborhood.
The following fact was stated to me by my brother, James M. Allan, now
residing at Richmond, Henry county, Illinois, and clerk of the circuit
and county courts. Tune became displeased with one of the women who
was pregnant, he made her lay down over a log, with her face towards
the ground, and beat her so unmercifully, that she was soon after
delivered of a _dead child_.

"My brother also stated to me the following, which occurred near my
father's house, and within sight and hearing of the academy and public
garden. Charles, a fine active negro, who belonged to a bricklayer in
Huntsville, exchanged the burning sun of the brickyard to enjoy for a
season the pleasant shade of an adjacent mountain. When his master got
him back, he tied him by his hands so that his feet could just touch
the ground--stripped off his clothes, took a paddle, bored full of
holes, and paddled him leisurely all day long. It was two weeks before
they could tell whether he would live or die. Neither of these cases
attracted any particular notice in Huntsville.

"While I lived in Huntsville a slave was killed in the mountain near
by. The circumstances were these. A white man (James Helton) hunting
in the woods, suddenly came upon a black man, and commanded him to
stop, the slave kept on running, Helton fired his rifle and the negro
was kille