On the principle that sparing the rod spoils the child, (for these people are viewed only as children,) their owners are not at all reserved in the use of this instrument of chastisement; and along with the gangs at labor may the overseer be seen applying it without remorse. As the blow generally falls on the skull, I can see little reason for a preference of this to the method of punishment by lashes on the back in vogue in our Southern States. This, however, is not their only way of punishment. I saw several instances of gross personal abuse. In one case I saw the slave thrown down, and dragged by the waistband over the sharp points of the macadamized street, with nothing to protect his buttocks from laceration except several thicknesses of calico. The poor fellow, apparently aware of its uselessness, made no complaint. This occurred, not in an obscure place--not in the purlieus of the town, but in a public street, where people were constantly passing, and who, if any feeling at all were expressed by them, only laughed at the ludicrousness of the scene. A police-officer stood looking on apathetically, as though the whole affair were a matter of course. Impelled with a desire to know what Englishmen thought of the apprentice-system, I put the question to every intelligent one that I could get at. In nine cases out of ten my auditor would waive the question by starting some other subject of conversation; but by the employment of a little finesse I generally managed to corner him, when, upon argument and hearing explanations of our system, he would confess that there was but a shade of difference between the two. One candid specimen of the John Bull character, whom I accidentally formed an acquaintance with, (and one, too, who had made the tour of our Southern States from Delaware to Texas--a man of strong mind and superior intelligence, and from the knowledge he possessed of the subject, also a man of observation,) stated that our slaves were better housed than the apprentices under the control of magnanimous and philanthropic Britain! Verily, England should look at home; and, if she can, apologize, and legislate for her factory-system, which heretofore has been the set-off advanced by Americans to her abuse of our slavery-system. Here is the same system, with such a close affinity to ours, that she cannot apologize for or mitigate it, without rendering us justice, and thereby exposing her previous hypocrisy and selfishness.