Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/163

 seen it done. On its application on a slave's back, he lias seen the blood spurt out immediately on the first stroke.

Nearly the same account of its construction is given by other witnesses, and its power and effects are thus described: At every stroke, says Captain Smith, a piece of flesh was drawn out. Dalrymple avers the same thing. It will even bring blood through the clothes, says J. Terry; and such is the effusion of blood on those occasions, adds Fitzmaurice, as to make their frocks, if immediately put on, appear as stiff as buckram; and Coor observes, that at his first going to Jamaica, a sight of a common flogging would put him in a tremble, so that he did not feel right for the rest of the day. It is observed also by Dr. Harrison and the Dean of Middleham, that the incisions are sometimes so deep that you may lay your fingers in the wounds. There are also wheals, says Mr. Coor, from their hams to the small of their backs. These wheals, cuts, or marks, are described by Captain Thompson, Dean of Middleham, Mr. Jeffreys, and General Tottenham, as indelible, as lasting to old age, or as such as no time can erase, and Woolrich has often seen their backs one undistinguished mass of lumps, holes, and furrows.

As farther proofs of the severity of these punishments by the whip or cowskin, the following facts may be adduced. Duncan and Falconbridge have known them so whipped that they could not lie down. He knew also a negro girl die of a mortification of her wounds, two days after the whipping had taken place. A case similar to the last is also mentioned by Mr. Rees. Finding, one day in his walks, a woman lying down and groaning, he understood from her that she had been so severely whipped for running away, that she could hardly move from the place where she was. Her left side, where she had been most whipped, appeared in a mortifying state, and almost covered with worms. He relieved her, as she was hungry, and in a day or two afterwards, going to visit her again, found she was dead and buried. To mention other instances: a planter flogged his driver to death, and even boasted of it to the person from whom Mr. Dalrymple had the account. Captain Hall (of the navy) also knows, by an instance that fell under his eye, that a slave's death may be occasioned by severe punishment. Dr. Jackson thinks, also, severe whippings are sometimes the occasion of their death. He recollects a negro dying under the lash, or soon afterwards; and Captain Ross avers that they often die in a few days after their severe punishments, for having but little food, and little care being taken to keep the sores clean after the whipping, their death is often the consequence.

Having now collected what is said on the punishments by the whip and cowskin, it will be proper to mention those other modes which the evidence presents us. These, however, are not easily subject to a division from the great variety of their kinds.

Captain Cook, speaking of the towns, says he has been shocked to see a girl of sixteen or seventeen, a domestic slave, running in the streets on her ordinary business, with an iron collar, having two hooks projecting several inches, both before and behind.