"Let any man of spirit and feeling, for a moment cast his thoughts over this land of slavery--think of the _nakedness_ of some, the _hungry yearnings_ of others, the _flowing tears and heaving sighs_ of parting relations, the _wailings and wo, the bloody cut of the keen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the very skies_--and all this to gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity, and other depraved feelings of the human heart.... THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of seven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."--_See "Swain's Address,"_ 1830. TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES C. FINLEY, _Son of Dr. Finley, one of the founders of the Colonization Society, and brother of R.S. Finley, agent of the American Colonization Society._ Dr. J.C. Finley was formerly one of the editors of the Western Medical Journal, at Cincinnati, and is well known in the west as utterly hostile to immediate abolition. "In almost the last conversation I had with you before I left Cincinnati, I promised to give you some account of some scenes of atrocious cruelty towards slaves, which I witnessed while I lived at the south. I almost regret having made the promise, for not only are they _so atrocious_ that you will with difficulty believe them, but I also fear that they will have the effect of driving you into that _abolitionism_, upon the borders of which you have been so long hesitating. The people of the north _are ignorant of the horrors of slavery_--of the _atrocities_ which it commits upon the unprotected slave. * * * "I do not know that any thing could be gained by particularizing the scenes of _horrible barbarity_, which fell under my observation during my _short_ residence in one of the wealthiest, most intelligent, and most moral parts of Georgia. Their _number_ and _atrocity_ are such, that I am confident they would gain credit with none but _abolitionists_. Every thing will be conveyed in the remark, that in a state of society calculated to foster the worst passions of our nature, the slave derives _no protection_ either from _law_ or _public opinion_, and that ALL the cruelties which the Russians are reported to have acted towards the Poles, after their late subjugation, ARE SCENES OF EVERY-DAY OCCURRENCE in the southern states. This statement, incredible as it may seem, falls short, very far short of the truth." The foregoing is extracted from a letter written by Dr. Finley to Rev. Asa Mahan, his former pastor, then of Cincinnati, now President of Oberlin Seminary. TESTIMONY OF REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, OF ILLINOIS, _Son of a Slaveholder, Rev. Dr. Allan of Huntsville, Ala._ "At our house it is so common to hear their (the slaves') screams, that we think nothing of it: and lest any one should think that in _general_ the slaves are well treated, let me be distinctly understood:--_cruelty_ is the _rule_, and _kindness_ the _exception_."