of all Southern physicians.

Examine the directions given for the cultivation of cotton, and see how
much labor could be saved, provided slaves could be induced to use good
tools; planting the seed and covering it requiring one horse or mule and
_four_ hands,--one to smooth the ground, one to open the furrow, one to
plant, and one to cover. All of these operations can be performed by one
man with a planting machine. But the negro can not be trusted with one;
for the moment you begin to teach him the reasons for using it, you
begin to teach him the benefit of using another complicated machine,
which he has not before known much about--his own head and arms, and,
worse than all, his own legs, all of which you have stolen from him; and
then he will misapply his knowledge, as an old fugitive once told me he
had done: 'I took my own legs for security, and walked off.'

I know a fugitive slave who was taught the trade of a blacksmith, and
who stole the art of writing; and a sad use he made of his
accomplishments; he forged free papers with his pen, and the sacred seal
of the State of Alabama with his tools, and then started North. In
Tennessee he got out of money, and stopped to work at his trade, was
suspected, brought before a court, his papers examined and pronounced
genuine, and he passed on to Canada or elsewhere. Surely this man did
not know how to take care of himself!

There is no great reason why the slave should exert himself very much,
and why he should not, cannot be better stated than by the Rev. Mr.
McTeyire, the son of a large planter in South Carolina. 'Men,' he says,
'who own few slaves, and who share the labors of the field or workshop
with them, are very liable to deceive themselves by a specious process
of reasoning: they say, "I carry row for row with my negroes, and I put