relieved. The food was too heavy for these children, and they were
nearly always in need of some medical attendance. Excessive heat, with
improper food, often brought on cholera infantum, from which the infants
sometimes died rapidly and in considerable numbers.

* * * * *

METHODS OF PUNISHMENT.

The methods of punishment were barbarous in the extreme, and so numerous
that I will not attempt to describe them all. One method was to tie the
slave to a tree, strip off his clothes, and then whip him with a
rawhide, or long, limber switches, or the terrible bull whip. Another
was to put the slave in stocks, or to buck him, that is, fasten his feet
together, draw up his knees to his chin, tie his hands together, draw
them down over the knees, and put a stick under the latter and over the
arms. In either of these ways the slave was entirely at the mercy of his
tormentors, and the whipping could proceed at their pleasure. After
these whippings the slave was often left helpless and bleeding upon the
ground, until the master, or overseer, saw fit to let him up. The most
common method of punishment was to have the servants form a ring, called
the "bull ring," into which the one to be punished was led naked. The
slaves were then each given a switch, rawhide, strap or whip, and each
one was compelled to cut at the poor victim as he ran around the ring.
The ring was composed of men, women and children; and, as they numbered
from forty to fifty, each circuit of the ring would result in that
number of lashes, and by the time the victim had made two or three
rounds his condition can be readily imagined. The overseer was always
one of the ring, vigorously using the whip, and seeing that all the
slaves did the same. Some of the victims fainted before they had passed