ure these advantages, as frequent opportunities are allowed them, conveying to market the fruit of their labour.

They are fed in common, one half the year, on corn, the other half year on potatoes. At stated periods, meat and fish are given to them, d the advantages of the rivers, creeks and ponds, are by no means considerable, whence oysters, crabs and fish are most amply afforded

em.

Their dwellings in common, are more commodious and comrtable than a large proportion of the white inhabitants of many rts of the interior parishes in this state. In sickness there is little tinction between them and their masters; the same medical attennce and every comfort necessary or desirable are invariably adminered. They are clad, in winter with best woolen plains, and in mmer with oznaburgs. In the parish where I reside, there is e Episcopal and one Presbyterian Church, regularly opened every bbath to every Negro, as well as white persons; and every Negro, at has produced satisfactory evidence of good character, and there è many such, has been invariably admitted to unite with the white mmunicants in celebrating the Lord's Supper. In concluding this bject, it may not be hazarding too much to say, that with humane asters, the negroes are generally as happy a people as any laboring iss, perhaps, under heaven ; and if I may be allowed the expression, inhumane master, is a very rare character; such would be held in ntempt and abhorrence.”

We are indebted to the politeness of ROBERT J. URNBULL ESQ. for the following communication. It as full and as conclusive as the most bigoted sceptic ould desire.

"The condition of our slaves, within the last thirty years, has been nsiderably ameliorated. Their labor has not only been dimished, but they have been treated with more indulgence and have ad more attention paid to their comfort and accommodation than rmerly. The introduction of mills and machinery for pounding id preparing the rice for market, which was previously accomplished 7 manual labor, forms a new era in the history of their state of labor. y this improvement, the reduction of hard work may be estimated nearly one half, whilst the water culture in the management of the ce crop, practised by many planters, and the substitution of cotton

for indigo on the high lands, have also greatly contributed to lesse their toil.

"No culture for our country can be easier than that of the cotto plant. With the excption of the second and third hoeings, which generally take place in the month of May, there is, comparatively little or no labor in attending to the crop, unless there be some defect in management; this sometimes occurs with careless Planters or with those who over-plant. With cotton there is no cutting, or carrying, or heavy harvesting. The pods, ripening in succession, and continuing for four and five months, make the harvest slow and tedi ous, but the work is light and easy, so much so, that all the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, and all the boys and girls above nine and ten years of age, are then in requisition to assist in gathering the wool which hangs from the pods. Children are in fact the most useful hands at this season. From the smallness of their fingers and their low stature, they daily pick in more than many adults. Nor is the cleaning and preparing the crop for market, attended with labor. The ginning* of the cotton by machines constructed for the purpose, impelled by treadles, would to some appear a laborious employment; but it is not so, for most able bodied negroes would prefer to work at these than to sit down and pick the moats from the wool. In short, from the time that the seed is put into the ground, which is in March, until Christmas when the crop is harvested, there is not, with the excep tion of the second and third hoeing, already stated, any hard labor performed by our slaves.

"The mechanics and artizans of Europe, and of some sections of our own country, labor in their employments, not only all day, but during part of the night. Our negroes on the contrary have their tasks allotted to them, and these are so apportioned, that there are few who cannot perform them by mid-day, or within an hour or two after wards. No matter what the work is, which a slave is ordered to per form. If its nature be such as to admit of his being tasked, he works under this task arrangement and no other; whether it be listing of the ground, banking, hoeing, thinning of the plants, gathering in of corn of blades, or ditching or draining, splitting of rails, making of fences of cutting wood; his work for the day is known to him before hand, long

*That is separating the wool from the seed.

+ Taking off the sward with a hoe and drawing it together as a foundation før a bed for the plant.

to sun-set.

ustom having fixed it. It may be easily imagined that under such an rrangement, the slave goes to his work with cheerfulness, because when e accomplishes it, the rest of the day is at his own disposal, which ie industriously applies to the cultivation of his own little garden or piece of ground allotted to him. It is in the season of cotton picking alone, that the slave labors (if it can be called labor) from sun-rise This is a species of employment, in which no task can be assigned for the quantity which a person can gather in a day; depends upon the state of the field, the weather, the wamth or coolness of the day, and many other circumstances. At all other seasons of the year, upon all well regulated plantations, the average time of laboring does not exceed seven or eight hours in the twenty-four. The working of our slaves by task, as it is called, distinguishes them from the laborers of other countries in an especial manner, when it is known, that the daily work allotted, is so considerably within that which it is in their power to perform. This daily task does not vary according to the arbitrary will and caprice of their owners, and although is not fixed by law, it is so well settled by long usage, that upon every plantation it is the same. Should any owner increase the work beyond what is customary, he subjects himself to the reproach of his neighbors, and to such discontent amongst his slaves as to make them of but little use to him.

"The subsistence of the slaves consists from March until August of corn, ground into grists or meal, which made into what is called hominy, or baked into corn bread, furnishes a most substantial and

wholesome food. The other six months they are fed upon the sweet potatoe, which is boiled, baked or roasted, as their taste or fancy may direct. These articles are distributed in weekly allowances, and in sufficient quantity, together with a proper allowance of salt. The skim milk or clabber of the dairy is divided daily. It would be very desirable if regular rations of bacon or some other animal food could be furnished them; but as this cannot always be practicable, it is dif ficult to make it a matter of permanent regulation. Meat, therefore, when given, is only by way of indulgence or favor. In those seasons of the year, when they are exposed to the most labor, they receive bacon, salt-fish, and occasionally fresh meat. Those who live on creeks and rivers are at no loss for an abudance of fish and oysters, to say nothing of the little comforts which all negroes have by the raising and sale of their pigs, poultry, &c. which they are permitted to do. But take their subsistence as it is, without any allowance of meat, is it not infinately preferable to the oat-meal of Scotland, and the potatoes of Ireland; a species of food very inferior to the sweet potatoe of a Southern soil? Our negroes could not work if fed upon the Irish potatoe.

"Their clothing consists of a winter and a summer suit; the former of a jacket, waistcoat and overalls of Welsh plains, and the latter of oz naburg or homespun, or other substitutes. They have shoes, hats and handkerchiefs, and other little articles, such as tobacco, pipes, rum &c. Their dwellings consist of good clay cabins, with clay chimneys, but so much attention has of late years been paid to their comfort in this particular, that it is now very common, particularly on the Sea Islands, to give them substantial framed houses on brick foundations and with brick chimneys. Many are of opinion that they enjoy more health in open temporary cabins with ground or dirt floors. But this does not correspond with the experience of those who willingly incur the expense of better buildings. In sickness they are taken care of, and on most plantations, there are sick houses, or hospitals, for the recep tion of those who do not go out to work; a practice which it would be well if it were more general. When the patient is really sick every comfort and attention may be dispensed by such an institution, whilst to such as enter it only to skulk from labor, (which is peculiar to some negroes,) it becomes a penitentiary.

"To each head of a family is allotted a piece of ground around his house, as a garden spot, in addition to which, each laborer has fifty

two and a half feet by one hundred and five, set apart for him in the field. To some, more is allowed.

"That the slaves in South-Carolina are humanely treated, and that they are better provided with food and clothing than are the poor in most countries, will appear to any impartial observer. No better evidence need be adduced than their cheerfulness and mirth at all times, both in town and country.

"With all their mirth and merriment, however, they do not seem more contented than they were thirty or forty years ago, when the discipline was more rigid, their labor more constant and their comforts fewer. This is undoubtedly owing to a relaxation in disipline which experience abundantly proves has been almost carried too far. The regulations that would be applicable to whites entirely fail when applied to the government of slaves. The only principle upon which any authority over them can be maintained is fear; and he who denies this, has but little knowledge of them. Where there is this principle in the bosom of a slave, coupled with a strong sense of his inferiority to his master, he is happy and contented, and this is almost universally the case with the country Negroes. In his dreams, no visions visit him to remind him of his servitude. Born a slave, he need only be assured that he will be well fed and clothed for life, and worked in moderation, and he will regard himself as the happiest of mortals.

in

"A proof of the humanity with which these people are treated, is their increase by natural population. There is no certainty as to what this increase is, because of the importation of slaves from Africa, until 1808, and the emigration into this, from other states. But it is believed to be infinitely greater, than the increase amongst the poor any part of Europe. In some parts of the State where the country is healthy there is a duplication every fifteen years. In many, every twenty years, whilst in some portions there is but a trifling increase in the same period. But this is owing not to any fault in their treatment, but to the extreme insalubrity of the air in some portions of the State. A reference also to the diseases which afflict our negroes, would show, that their food is both more wholesome and more abundant than that of the laboring classes in other countries. Dropsies, rickets, scrofula, typhus fever, and the long train of diseases which attend upon want and poverty, are far less frequent amongst our slaves, than In England, Scotland and Ireland. The diseases most fatal arecatarrhas, pleurisies, peripenumony, and other diseases of the chest.