It is remarkable to notice that, although the poor negroes are but very little acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures, yet the Almighty, apparently to show man the futility of attempting to keep the mind of his fellow-man in ignorance of Him, has imparted to the poor despised one a species of subtlety in acquiring religious knowledge, which may appear to those who are not personally acquainted with the fact, extraordinary and impossible. If God so honour the negro, and if He works for his deliverance from bondage as He has been doing, ought we to be idle? Surely if we stand calmly by, and see our brother murdered, shall not we be guilty of his blood? Some have blamed “Abolitionists" for over-zealousness; but surely no one could be too zealous for the destruction of a system which works, or can work, as described in these pages. "Let us be up and doing, for the night cometh when no man can work."

"Oh, early in the morning,

Early in the evening,

Then we'll shout glory, glory, in my soul.

Old fathers, can't you rise and tell?
Bless the Lord, we'll rise and tell,

Then we'll shout glory, glory, in my soul."

This the slaves sing to keep time while picking cotton in the fields under the burning sun; soon after, the whiplash falls on their backs by their drunken masters and overseers, till the blood runs down. And still they say that the slaves are better off than the working people in free countries, which is as big a lie as ever was told.

A man by the name of Stevondecause, in South Carolina, kept a storehouse at the cross road, over the mill branch, where he sold liquor and other things to the white people at daytime; he enticed the negroes to steal at night cotton and corn, and other things, for which he gave them liquor and one thing or another; and he steals it from them by not giving them what it is worth, and tells them to go and steal more, and not let their masters see them. And when he got rich enough to buy niggers himself, he stopped trading with the others. He went across Black River Swamp, where he bought a plantation, and was one of the worst masters that ever lived. He was afraid to let any of his niggers leave his plantation at night, and told them if they did he would whip them; and why, because it takes a rough to catch a rough, and he is afraid they will steal

his cotton, as he got other master's niggers to steal for him to make him rich. Mr. Neddy Anderson, and William Miles, and Stevondecause, are very bad men-more like beasts than men-they used to go about all the plantations on Sunday nights, and frighten the negroes that used to come together to hold prayer-meetings, chasing them here and there, and whipping as many as they could catch without a pass. Mr. Anderson spends a great deal of his time in plaiting whips to whip the negroes with; my mistress hired him as overseer to come and flog all the negroes, and me in particular, after Christmas, because I had a black pony. But she gave us three days at Christmas, and I have not been home since; for I and the pony gave them leg-bail for security, and thank God, got safe to a Free State.

Two negroes were being taken away from their families in chains to the new countries, on the way there, the master stopped for dinner at one of the planter's houses, while the slaves were fastened to a tree. After dinner, he sent for his horse to be brought. The horse would not let the slave put the bridle on him, he bit at him. Master," said the slave, "I can't catch your horse, he bites" "Oh, well, I'll go.' He went, and said, "What are you about, sir?" and rubbing him down behind, and lifting one of his hind feet, the horse kicked his brains out. The slaves were then let loose and sent back.

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The Rev. Mr. Reed, minister of Mount Zion Church, South Carolina, when his wife wanted him to whip her slave girl, he said, "I can't, I am a minister of the gospel." "Well, other ministers whip their niggers, and you can whip yours too." "No, I can't." "Well, I will send her to Mr. Sam. Wilson, and have her whipped." So she sat down and wrote a few lines, and she called her slave girl to her and said, "Here, Madam Manda, take this letter to Mr. Wilson." Which was five miles from her house. When he broke open the letter, he read, “Please give the bearer fifty lashes on the bare back, well put on.' The girl looked astonished, and thought she had committed some crime, and said, "Please massa, don't whip me, mistress give me this letter to give you." He said, “I don't care, I am going to give you fifty lashes." After she

was flogged, she returned to her cruel mistress, who examined her back, and said, "Right good for you; I'm glad, I long wanted you whipped." A drunken slave

holder, by the name of Old Billy Dunn, whipped one of his negroes to death, and dug a hole in the field, and threw him in without coffin or anything of the kind, just as dogs are buried; and in the course of time, the niggers ploughed up the bones, and said, "Brudder, this the place where Old Billy Dunn buried one of his slaves that was flogged to death."

I, John Andrew Jackson, once a slave in the United States, have seen and heard all this, therefore I publish it. J. A. JACKSON.

FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN,

DEDICATED TO WILLIAM W. BROWN,

And Sung by the Hutchinsons.

BY ELIAS SMITH.

AIR-Silver Moon.

From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound,
Takes the poor panting bondman his flight;
His couch through the day is the cold damp ground,
But northward he runs through the night.

CHORUS.

O God, speed the flight of the desolate slave,
Let his heart never yield to despair;

There is room 'mong our hills for the true and the brave,
Let his lungs breathe our free northern air!

Oh, sweet to the storm-driven sailor the light,
Streaming far o'er the dark swelling wave;
But sweeter by far 'mong the lights of the night,
Is the star of the north to the slave.

O God, speed, &c.

Cold and bleak are our mountains, and chilling our winds,
But warm as the soft southern gales

Be the hands and the hearts which the hunted one finds,
'Mong our hills and our own winter vales.

O God, speed, &c.

Then list to the 'plaint of the beart-broken thrall,
Ye blood-hounds go back to your lair;
May a free northern soil soon give freedom to all,
Who shall breathe in its pure mountain air.
O God, speed, &c.

THE BEREAVED MOTHER.

AIR-Kathleen O'More.

Oh, deep was the anguish of the slave mother's heart,
When called from her darling for ever to part;
So grieved that lone mother, that heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.

The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock,
While the child of her bosom is sold on the block;
Yet loud shrieked that mother, poor heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.

The babe in return, for its fond mother cries,
While the sound of their wailings together arise;
They shriek for each other, the child and the mother,

In sorrow and woe.

The harsh auctioneer, to sympathy cold,

Tears the babe from its mother and sells it for gold;
While the infant and mother loud shriek for each other,
In sorrow and woe.

At last came the parting of mother and child,

Her brain reeled with madness, that mother was wild;
Then the lash could not smother the shrieks of that mother,
Of sorrow and woe.

The child was borne off to a far distant clime,
While the mother was left in anguish to pine;
But reason departed, and she sank broken-hearted,
In sorrow and woe.

That poor mourning mother of reason bereft,
Soon ended her sorrows and sank cold in death;
Thus died that slave mother, poor heart-broken mother,
In sorrow and woe.

O list ye kind mothers, to the cries of the slave;
The parents and children implore you to save;
Go! rescue the mothers, the sisters and brothers,
From sorrow and woe.

THE YANKEE GIRL.

She sings by her wheel at that low cottage door,
Which the long evening shadow is stretching before,
With a music as sweet as the music which seems
Breathed softly and faintly in the ear of our dreams.

How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye,
Like a star glancing out from the blue of the sky
And lightly and freely her dark tresses play
O'er a brow and a bosom as lovely as they.

Who comes in his pride to that low cottage door-
The haughty and rich to the humble and poor?
'Tis the great Southern planter-the master who waves
His whip of dominion o'er hundreds of slaves.

'Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin,
Who would pass for our slaves with a change of their skin;
Let them toil as they will at the loom or the wheel,
Too stupid for shame and too vulgar to feel.

But thou art too lovely and precious a gem
To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them-
For shame, Ellen, shame !-cast thy bondage aside,
And away to the South, as my blessing and pride.
O come where no winter thy footsteps can wrong,
But where flowers are blossoming all the year long;
Where the shade of the palm-tree is over my home,
And the lemon and orange are white in their bloom.
O come to my home, where my servants shall all
Depart at thy bidding and come at thy call;

They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe,
And each wish of thy heart shall be felt as a law.'

O could ye have seen her-that pride of our girls-
Arise and cast back the dark wealth of her curls,
With scorn in her eye which the gazer could feel,
And a glance like the sunshine that flashes on steel:
"Go back, haughty Southron! thy treasures of gold
Are dim with the blood of the hearts thou hast sold;
Thy home may be lovely, but round it I hear
The crack of the whip and the footsteps of fear!
And the sky of thy South may be brighter than ours,
And greener thy landscapes, and fairer thy flowers;
But, dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,
Than the sweet sunny zephyr which breathes over slaves
Full low at thy bidding thy negroes may kneel,
With the iron of bondage on spirit and heel;
Yet know that the Yankee girl sooner would be
In fetters with them, than in freedom with thee!"

THE SLAVE'S SONG.

AIR-Dearest May.

Now, freemen, listen to my song, a story I'll relate,
It happened in the valley of the old Carolina State:
They marched me to the cotton field, at early break of day,
And worked me there till late sunset, without a cent of pay.

CHORUS.

They worked me all the day,

Without a bit of pay,

And believed me when I told them

That I would not run away.