37 and 8. In a letter
to the Rev. Wm. Scales of Lyndon, Vt. written a few weeks since, Mr.
Ide writes as follows.

"In answering the proposed inquiries, I will say first, that although
there are various other modes resorted to, whipping with the cowskin
is the usual mode of inflicting punishment on the poor slave. I have
never actually witnessed a whipping scene, for they are usually taken
into some back place for that purpose; but I have often heard their
groans and screams while writhing under the lash; and have seen the
blood flow from their torn and lacerated skins after the vengeance of
the inhuman master or mistress had been glutted. You ask if the woman
where I boarded whipped a slave to death. I can give you the
particulars of the transaction as they were related to me. My
informant was a gentleman--a member of the Presbyterian church in
Massachusetts--who the winter before boarded where I did. He said that
Mrs. T---- had a female slave whom she used to whip unmercifully, and on
one occasion, she whipped her as long as she had strength, and after
the poor creature was suffered to go, she crawled off into a cellar.
As she did not immediately return, search was made, and she was found
dead in the cellar, and the horrid deed was kept a secret in the
family, and it was reported that she died of sickness. This wretch at
the same time was a member of a Presbyterian church. Towards her
slaves she was certainly the most cruel wretch of any woman with whom
I was ever acquainted--yet she was nothing more than a slaveholder.
She would deplore slavery as much as I did, and often told me she was
much of an abolitionist as I was. She was constant in the declaration
that her kind treatment to her slaves was proverbial. Thought I, then
the Lord have mercy on the rest. She has often told me of the cruel
treatment of the slaves on a plantation adjoining her father's in the
low country of South Carolina. She says she has often seen them driven
to the necessity of eating frogs and lizards to sustain life. As to
the mode of living generally, my information is rather limited, being
with few exceptions confined to the different families where I have
boarded. My stopping places at the south have mostly been in cities.
In them the slaves are better fed and clothed than on plantations. The
house servants are fed on what the families leave. But they are kept
short, and I think are oftener whipped for stealing something to eat
than any ot