(2.) I am next brought to _Slave-Masters in their relations with Slaves_; and here the argument is founded on facts, and on presumptions irresistible as facts. Only lately has inquiry burst into that gloomy world of bondage, and disclosed its secrets. But enough is already known to arouse the indignant condemnation of mankind. For instance, here is a simple advertisement--one of thousands--from the _Georgia Messenger_:-- “RUN AWAY.--My man Fountain; has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead; has been shot in the hind parts of his legs; is marked on his back with the whip. Apply to Robert Beasley, Macon, Ga.” Holes in the ears; scar on the forehead; shot in the legs; and marks of the lash on the back! Such are tokens by which the Slave-Master identifies his slave. Here is another advertisement, revealing Slave-Masters in a different light. It is from the _National Intelligencer_, published at the capital; and I confess the pain with which I cite such an indecency in a journal of much respectability. Of course it appeared without the knowledge of the editors; but it is none the less an illustrative example. “FOR SALE.--An accomplished and handsome lady’s-maid. She is just sixteen years of age; was raised in a genteel family in Maryland; and is now proposed to be sold, not for any fault, but simply because the owner has no further use for her. A note directed to C. D., Gadsby’s Hotel, will receive prompt attention.” A sated libertine, in a land where vice is legalized, could not expose his victim with apter words. These two instances illustrate a class. In the recent work of Mr. Olmsted, a close observer and traveller in the Slave States, which abounds in pictures of Slavery, drawn with caution and evident regard to truth, is another, where a Slave-Master thus frankly confesses his experience:-- “‘I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running away, certain,’ said the Slave-Master. ‘There was an old fellow I used to know in Georgia, that always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, he would bind his knee over a log, and fasten him so he couldn’t stir; then he’d take a pair of pincers, and pull one of his toe-nails out by the roots, and tell him, that, if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of them, and if he run away again after that, he told him he’d pull out four of them, and so on, doubling each time. He never had to do it more than twice; it always cured them.’”[64] Like this story, from the lips of a Slave-Master, is another, where the master, angry because his slave sought to regain his God-given liberty, deliberately cut the tendons of his heel, thus horribly maiming him for life. In vain these instances are denied. Their accumulating number, authenticated in every possible manner, by the press, by a cloud of witnesses, and by the confession of Slave-Masters, stares us constantly in the face.