r.'--_1 Harris and Johnson's Reports,
4._

9. _Slaves under overseers whose wages are proportioned to the crop
which they raise._ This is an arrangement common in the slave states,
and in its practical operation is equivalent to a bounty on _hard
driving_--a virtual premium offered to overseers to keep the slaves
whipped up to the top of their strength. Even where the overseer has a
fixed salary, irrespective of the value of the crop which he takes
off, he is strongly tempted to overwork the slaves, as those overseers
get the highest wages who can draw the largest income from a
plantation with a given number of slaves; so that we may include in
this last class of slaves, the majority of all those who are under
overseers, whatever the terms on which those overseers are employed.

Another class of slaves may be mentioned; we refer to the slaves of
masters who _bet_ upon their crops. In the cotton and sugar region
there is a fearful amount of this desperate gambling, in which, though
money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, human life is the real one.
The length to which this rivalry is carried at the south and south
west, the multitude of planters who engage in it, and the recklessness
of human life exhibited in driving the murderous game to its issue,
cannot well be imagined by one who has not lived in the midst of it.
Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them;--the
_eclat_ of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands,
is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop
season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton
picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of
professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs
of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N.
Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at Natchez, Miss. in
which he took care to assign a prominent place, and capitals to "THE
COTTON BRAG." The testimony of Mr. Bliss, page 38, details some of the
particulars of this _betting_ upon crops. All the preceding classes of
slaves are in circumstances which make it "for the _interest_ of their
masters," or those who have the management of them, to treat them
cruelly.

Besides the operation of the causes already specified, which make it
for the interest of masters and overseers to treat cruelly _certain
classes_ of their slaves, a variety of others exist, which make it for
their intere