Cutting off the ears was a very common punishment. But M. Jouanneau, who lived at Grande-Riviére, nailed one of his slaves to the wall by the ears, then released him by cutting them off with a razor, and closed the entertainment with compelling him to grill and eat them. There was one overseer who never went out without a hammer and nails in his pocket, for nailing negroes by the ear to a tree or post when the humor struck him. Half a dozen cases of flaying women alive, inspired by jealousy, are upon record; also some cases of throwing negroes into the furnaces with the _bagasse_ or waste of the sugar-cane. Pistol-practice at negroes' heads was very common; singeing them upon cassava plates, grinding them slowly through the sugar-mill, pitching them into the boiler, was an occasional pastime. If a woman was fortunate enough to lose her babe, she was often thrown into a cell till she chose to have another. Madame Bailly had a wooden child made, which she fastened around the necks of her negresses, if their children died, until they chose to replace them. These punishments were devised to check infanticide, which was the natural relief of the slave-mother. Venault de Charmilly, a planter of distinction, afterwards the accomplished agent of the emigrant-interest at the court of St. James, used to carry pincers in his pocket, to tear the ears or tongues of his unfortunate slaves, if they did not hear him call, or if their replies were unsatisfactory. He pulled teeth with the same instrument. This man threw his postilion to the horses, literally tying him in their stall till he was beaten by their hoofs to shreds. He was an able advocate of slavery, and did much to poison the English mind, and to create a party with the object of annexing San Domingo and restoring the colonial system. Cocherel, a planter of Gonaïves, had a slave who played upon the violin. After terrible floggings, he would compel this man to play, as a punishment for having danced without music. He found it piquant to watch the contest of pain and sorrow with the native love of melody. The cases where French planters watched curiously the characteristics of their various expedients for torture are so common that they furnish us with a trait of French Creolism. A poor cook, for instance, was one day thrown into an oven with a crackling heap of _bagasse_, because some article of food reached the table underdone. As the lips curled and shrivelled away from the teeth, his master, who was observing the effects of heat, exclaimed,--"The rascal laughs!" But the most symbolical action, expressive of the colony's whole life, was performed by one Corbierre, who punished his slaves by blood-letting, and gave a humorous refinement to the sugar which he manufactured by using this blood to assist in clarifying it.