Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/199

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vii.

a slave one month, with one pint of salt; allowing thirty days for a month, would be equal to one quart and three-fifths per day. This is to be reduced to meal, which would be a little more than a pint per day. With this they must work fifteen hours per day one part of the year, and fourteen hours another. The prisoners in the state prisons, whether for life or a shorter period of time, are fed on substantial food, and quite sufficient in quantity, three times a day; and seldom, if ever, are required to labour more than ten or twelve hours per day. Though this Act mentions no meat, I have known the planters to allow the hands from a pound to a pound and a half of meat per week. Many not having utensils in which to cook, broil it on coals of fire; put it with a morsel of bread into gourds; take it to the field, which is to last them all day. Mothers, two weeks after child-birth, must be in the field making a full hand, in many instances putting her child in the shade of a tree, permitted to nurse it twice a day, though it may cry from the sting of insects. She may plead for permission to nurse it; the overseer may grant it, or he may not; if so, it is considered very kind of him indeed. Reader, bring this matter home to your own heart, then think and feel for the Slave. Thus he suffers to cultivate Cotton for your benefit as well as others. I could write volumes on the plantation life of Slaves, which I have said nothing about in my book, because it was foreign from my subject. Ye mothers of England, can you do anything at this distance to alleviate the condition of your sisters on those cotton plantations in that Country? Can you pour the oil of joy into their hearts? Cease as soon as practicable the use of Cotton bathed in their tears, chasing each other down their sorrow-worn cheeks; then you will have snatched