“As I have said before sir,” replied the Colonel, “our nigger-laws are such as to require a strict enforcement. If we allowed the prerogative of a discretionary power, it would open the way to an endless system of favoritism, just at the mercy and feelings of those exercising it. As it is now, the white or black nigger, male or female, gets the same law and the same penalty. We make no distinction even at the paddle-gallows. The paddle-gallows is a frame with two uprights, and a wrench screw at the top. The negro's hands are secured in iron wristlets-similar to handcuffs; a rope is then attached to an eye in these, and passing over the wrench, which being turned, the negro is raised in an agonizing position until the tips of his toes scarcely touch the floor. Thus suspended, with the skin stretched to its utmost tension, it not unfrequently parts at the first blow of the paddle. Sometimes the feet are secured, when the effect of this modern science of demonstrating the tension of the human body for punishment becomes more painful under the paddle. South Carolinians deny this mode of punishment generally, and never allow strangers to witness it. It is not, as some writers have stated, practised in Georgia, where, we are happy to say, that so far as punishment is conducted in a legal manner, at the jails and prisons, it is administered in a humane manner; and instead of turning modern barbarity into a science, as is, done in South Carolina, a strict regard for the criminal is observed. I will relate some singular facts connected with the strictness with which we South Carolinians carry out our laws. And now that we are on the spot connected with it, its associations are more forcibly impressed on my mind. It brings with it many painful remembrances, and, were we differently situated, I should wish the cause to be removed. But it cannot be, and we must carry out the law without making allowances, for in these little leniencies all those evils which threaten the destruction of our peculiar institution creep in. In fact, Captain, they are points of law upon which all our domestic quietude stands; and as such, we are bound to strengthen our means of enforcing them to the strictest letter. Our laws are founded upon the ancient wisdom of our forefathers, and South Carolina has never traduced herself or injured her legal purity. We have reduced our system almost to a practical science, so complete in its bearings and points of government as to be worthy the highest and noblest purposes of our country. And at the same time, such is the spirit and magnanimity of our people, that in framing laws to guard against the dangerous influences of that wing of our country that spreads its ambitious fallacies--its tempting attractions-shallow criticisms upon minute and isolated cases-redundant theories without measure or observation, and making a standard for the government of slaves upon foolish and capricious