unty, Illinois, and clerk of the circuit
and county courts. Tune became displeased with one of the women who
was pregnant, he made her lay down over a log, with her face towards
the ground, and beat her so unmercifully, that she was soon after
delivered of a _dead child_.
"My brother also stated to me the following, which occurred near my
father's house, and within sight and hearing of the academy and public
garden. Charles, a fine active negro, who belonged to a bricklayer in
Huntsville, exchanged the burning sun of the brickyard to enjoy for a
season the pleasant shade of an adjacent mountain. When his master got
him back, he tied him by his hands so that his feet could just touch
the ground--stripped off his clothes, took a paddle, bored full of
holes, and paddled him leisurely all day long. It was two weeks before
they could tell whether he would live or die. Neither of these cases
attracted any particular notice in Huntsville.
"While I lived in Huntsville a slave was killed in the mountain near
by. The circumstances were these. A white man (James Helton) hunting
in the woods, suddenly came upon a black man, and commanded him to
stop, the slave kept on running, Helton fired his rifle and the negro
was killed.[5]
[Footnote 5: This murder was committed about twelve years since. At
that time, James G. Birney, Esq., now Corresponding Secretary of the
American Anti-Slavery Society was the Solicitor (prosecuting attorney)
for that judicial district. His views and feelings upon the subject of
slavery were, even at that period, in advance of the mass of
slaveholders, and he determined if possible to bring the murderer to
justice. He accordingly drew up an indictment and procured the finding
of a true bill against Helton. Helton, meanwhile, moved over the line
into the state of Tennessee, and such was the apathy of the community,
individual effort proved unavailing; and though the murderer had gone
no further than to an adjoining county (where perhaps he still
resides) he was never brought to trial.--ED.]
"Mrs. Barr, wife of Rev. H. Barr of Carrollton, Illinois, formerly
from Courtland, Alabama, told me last spring, that she has very often
stopped her ears that she might not hear the screams of slaves who
were under the lash, and that sometimes she has left her house, and
retired to a place more distant, in order to get away from their
agonizing cries.
"I have often seen groups of slaves on the public squares in
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