orious at the south, that negroes are driven harder
and fare worse under overseers than under their owners."

William Ladd, Esq. of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida,
speaking, in a recent letter of the system of labor adopted there,
says; "The compensation of the overseers _was a certain portion of the
crop_."

Rev. Phineas Smith, of Centreville, Allegany Co. N.Y. who has
recently returned from a four years' residence, in the Southern slave
states and Texas, says,

"The mode in which _many_ plantations are managed, is calculated and
_designed_, as an inducement to the slave driver, to lay upon the
slave the _greatest possible burden, the overseer being entitled by
contract, to a certain share of the crop_."

We leave the reader to form his own opinion, as to the proportion of
slaves under overseers, whose wages are in proportion to the crop,
raised by them. We have little doubt that we shall escape the charge
of wishing to make out a "strong case" when we put the proportion at
_one-eighth_ of the whole number of slaves, which would be _three
hundred and fifty thousand_.

Without drawing out upon the page a sum in addition for the reader to
"run up," it is easily seen that the slaves in the preceding classes
amount to more than ELEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND, exclusive of the deaf and
dumb, and the blind, some of whom, especially the former, might be
profitable to their "owners";

Now it is plainly for the interest of the "owners" of these slaves, or
of those who have the charge of them, to _treat than cruelly_, to
overwork, under-feed, half-clothe, half-shelter, poison, or kill
outright, the aged, the broken down, the incurably diseased, idiots,
feeble infants, most of the blind, some deaf and dumb, &c. It is
besides a part of the slave-holder's creed, that it is _for his
interest_ to treat with terrible severity, all runaways and the
incorrigibly stubborn, thievish, lazy, &c.; also for those who hire
slaves, to overwork them; also for overseers to overwork the slaves
under them, when their own wages are increased by it.

We have thus shown that it would be "_for the interest_," of masters
and overseers to treat with _habitual_ cruelty _more than one million_
of the slaves in the United States. But this is not all; as we have
said already, it is for the interest of overseers generally, whether
their wages are proportioned to the crop or not, to overwork the
slaves; we need not repeat the reasons.