, try to govern their slaves by moral
influence, but by whipping, kicking, beating, starving, branding,
_cat-hauling_, loading with irons, imprisoning, or by some other cruel
mode of torturing. They often boast of having invented some new mode
of torture, by which they have "tamed the rascals," What is called a
moderate flogging at the south is horribly cruel. Should we whip our
horses for any offence as they whip their slaves for small offences,
we should expose ourselves to the penalty of the law. The masters whip
for the smallest offences, such as not performing their tasks, being
caught by the guard or patrol by night, or for taking any thing from
the master's yard without leave. For these, and the like crimes, the
slaves are whipped thirty-nine lashes, and sometimes seventy or a
hundred, on the bare back. One slave, who was under my care, was
whipped, I think one hundred lashes, for getting a small handful of
wood from his master's yard without leave. I heard an overseer
boasting to this same master that he gave one of the boys seventy
lashes, for not doing a job of work just as he thought it ought to be
done. The owner of the slave appeared to be pleased that the overseer
had been so faithful. The apology they make for whipping so cruelly
is, that it is to frighten the rest of the gang. The masters say, that
what we call an ordinary flogging will not subdue the slaves; hence
the most cruel and barbarous scourgings ever witnessed by man are
daily and _hourly_ inflicted upon the naked bodies of these miserable
bondmen; not by masters and negro-drivers only, but by the constables
in the common markets and jailors in their yards.

When the slaves are whipped, either in public or private, they have
their hands fastened by the wrists, with a rope or cord prepared for
the purpose: this being thrown over a beam, a limb of a tree, or
something else, the culprit is drawn up and stretched by the arms as
high as possible, without raising his feet from the ground or floor:
and sometimes they are made to stand on tip-toe; then the feet are
made fast to something prepared for them. In this distorted posture
the monster flies at them, sometimes in great rage, with his
implements of torture, and cuts on with all his might, over the
shoulders, under the arms, and sometimes over the head and ears, or on
parts of the body where he can inflict the greatest torment.
Occasionally the whipper, especially if his victim does not beg enough