ty or seventy.
She fled to keep from being sold. She had been "whipt right smart,"
poorly fed and poorly clothed, by a certain Roger McZant, of the New
Market District, Eastern Shore of Maryland. His wife was a "bad woman
too." Just before escaping, Jane got a whisper that her "master" was
about to sell her; on asking him if the rumor was true, he was silent.
He had been asking "one hundred dollars" for her.

Remembering that four of her children had been snatched away from her
and sold South, and she herself was threatened with the same fate, she
was willing to suffer hunger, sleep in the woods for nights and days,
wandering towards Canada, rather than trust herself any longer under the
protection of her "kind" owner. Before reaching a place of repose she
was _three weeks in the woods_, almost wholly without nourishment.

Jane, doubtless, represented thousands of old slave mothers, who, after
having been worn out under the yoke, were frequently either offered for
sale for a trifle, turned off to die, or compelled to eke out their
existence on the most stinted allowance.

* * * * *

BENJAMIN ROSS, AND HIS WIFE HARRIET.

FLED FROM CAROLINE COUNTY, EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND, JUNE, 1857.

This party stated that Dr. Anthony Thompson had claimed them as his
property. They gave the Committee a pretty full report of how they had
been treated in slavery, especially under the doctor. A few of the
interesting points were noted as follows: The doctor owned about twenty
head of slaves when they left; formerly he had owned a much larger
number, but circumstances had led him to make frequent sales during the
few years previous to their escape, by which the stock had been reduced.
As well as having been largely interested in slaves, he had at the same
time been largely interested in real estate, to the extent of a dozen
farms at least. But in consequence of having reached out too far,
several of his farms had slipped out of his hands.

Upon the whole, Benjamin pronounced him a rough man towards his slaves,
and declared, that he had not given him a dollar since the death of his
(the master's) father, which had been at least twenty years prior to
Benjamin's escape. But Ben. did not stop here, he went on to speak of
the religious character of his master, and also to describe him
physically; he was a Methodist preacher, and had been "pretending to
preach for twenty years." Then the fact th