deed they generally trade more or less
with stolen property. But it is impossible to find out what and when,
as their articles of barter are of such trifling importance. They
would often come on board our boats to beg a bone, and would tell how
badly they were fed, that they were almost starved; many a time I have
set up all night, to prevent them from stealing something to eat."

3. QUALITY OF FOOD.

Having ascertained the kind and quantity of food allowed to the
slaves, it is important to know something of its _quality_, that we
may judge of the amount of sustenance which it contains. For, if their
provisions are of an inferior quality, or in a damaged state, their
power to sustain labor must be greatly diminished.

Thomas Clay, Esq. of Georgia, from an address to the Georgia
Presbytery, 1834, speaking of the quality of the corn given to the
slaves, says,

"There is _often a defect here_."

Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist clergyman at Marlboro, Mass. and
five years a resident of Georgia.

"The food, or 'feed' of slaves is generally of the _poorest_ kind."

The "Western Medical Reformer," in an article on the diseases peculiar
to negroes, by a Kentucky physician, says of the diet of the slaves;

"They live on a coarse, _crude, unwholesome diet_."

Professor A.G. Smith, of the New York Medical College; formerly a
physician in Louisville, Kentucky.

I have myself known numerous instances of large families of _badly
fed_ negroes swept off by a prevailing epidemic; and it is well known
to many intelligent planters in the south, that the best method of
preventing that horrible malady, _Chachexia Africana_, is to feed the
negroes with _nutritious_ food.

4. NUMBER AND TIME OF MEALS EACH DAY.

In determining whether or not the slaves suffer for want of food, the
number of hours intervening, and the labor performed between their
meals, and the number of meals each day, should be taken into
consideration.

Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer in Elyria, Ohio, and member of the
Presbyterian church, who lived in Florida, in 1834, and 1835.

"The slaves go to the field in the morning; they carry with them corn
meal wet with water, and at _noon_ build a fire on the ground and bake
it in the ashes. After the labors of the day are over, they take their
_second_ meal of ash-cake."

President Edwards, the younger.

"The slaves eat _twice_ during the day."

Mr. Eleazar Powell, Chippewa, Beaver county,