day, and less than a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no
kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of
food to prevent physical exhaustion, than the field-work of a
slave. So much for the slave's allowance of food; now for his
raiment. The yearly allowance of clothing for the slaves on this
plantation, consisted of two tow-linen shirts--such linen as the
coarsest crash towels are made of; one pair of trowsers of the
same material, for summer, and a pair of trowsers and a jacket of
woolen, most slazily put together, for winter; one pair of yarn
stockings, and one pair of shoes of the coarsest description.
The slave's entire apparel could not have cost more than eight
dollars per year. The allowance of food and clothing for the
little children, was committed to their mothers, or to the older
slavewomen having the care of them. Children who were unable to
work in the field, had neither shoes, stockings, jackets nor
trowsers given them. Their clothing consisted of two coarse tow-
linen shirts--already described--per year; and when these failed
them, as they often did, they went naked until the next allowance
day. Flocks of little children from five to ten years old, might
be seen on Col. Lloyd's plantation, as destitute of clothing as
any little heathen on the west coast of Africa; and this, not
merely during the summer months, but during the frosty weather of
March. The little girls were no better off than the boys; all
were nearly in a state of nudity.
<79 THE SLAVES' FOOD AND CLOTHING>

As to beds to sleep on, they were known to none of the field
hands; nothing but a coarse blanket--not so good as those used in
the north to cover horses--was given them, and this only to the
men and women. The children stuck themselves in holes and