lled _cropping_. In the
preceding advertisements, the reader will perceive a number of cases,
in which the runaway is described as '_cropt_,' or a '_notch cut_ in
the ear, or a part or the whole of the ear _cut off_,' &c.

Two years and a half since, the writer of this saw a letter, then just
received by Mr. Lewis Tappan, of New York, containing a negro's ear
cut off close to the head. The writer of the letter, who signed
himself Thomas Oglethorpe, Montgomery, Alabama, sent it to Mr. Tappan
as 'a specimen of a negro's ears,' and desired him to add it to his
'collection.'

Another method of _marking_ slaves, is by drawing out or breaking off
one or two _front teeth_--commonly the upper ones, as the mark would
in that case be the more obvious. An instance of this kind the reader
will recall in the testimony of Sarah M. Grimke, page 30, and of which
she had _personal_ knowledge; being well acquainted both with the
inhuman master, (a distinguished citizen of South Carolina,) by whose
order the brutal deed was done, and with the poor young girl whose
mouth was thus barbarously mutilated, to furnish a convenient mark by
which to describe her in case of her elopement, as she had frequently
run away.

The case stated by Miss G. serves to unravel what, to one uninitiated,
seems quite a mystery: i.e. the frequency with which, in the
advertisements of runaway slaves published in southern papers, they
are described as having _one or two front teeth out_. Scores of such
advertisements are in southern papers now on our table. We will
furnish the reader with a dozen or two.

Jesse Debruhl, sheriff, Richland District, "Columbia (S.C.)
Telescope," Feb. 24, 1839.

"Committed to jail, Ned, about 25 years of age, has lost his _two
upper front teeth_."

Mr. John Hunt, Black Water Bay, "Pensacola (Ga.) Gazette," October 14,
1837.

"100 DOLLARS REWARD, for Perry, _one under front tooth_ missing, aged
23 years."

Mr. John Frederick, Branchville, Orangeburgh District, S.C.
"Charleston (S.C.) Courier," June 12, 1837.

"10 DOLLARS REWARD, for Mary, _one or two upper teeth_ out, about 25
years old."

Mr. Egbert A. Raworth, eight miles west of Nashville on the Charlotte
road "Daily Republican Banner," Nashville, Tennessee, April 30, 1938.

"Ranaway, Myal, 23 years old, one of his _fore teeth out_."

Benjamin Russel, Deputy sheriff Bibb Co. Ga. "Macon (Ga.) Telegraph,"
Dec. 25, 1837.

"Brought to jail John, 23 years old,