The other Southern States which had laws against kidnapping are: Alabama,[223] Maryland,[224] Mississippi,[225] Missouri,[226] Florida,[227] South Carolina,[228] Arkansas,[229] Tennessee,[230] Louisiana,[231] Georgia.[232] Delaware, however, had the most interesting as well as very severe laws against kidnapping. That of 1793 required that any one guilty of kidnapping or of assisting to kidnap free negroes or mulattoes should be whipped with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back, and stand in the pillory with both of his ears nailed to it, and when he came out to have their soft parts cut off.[233] In 1826 the penalties were made even more severe: $1,000 fine, pillory one hour, to be whipped with sixty lashes upon the bare back, to be imprisoned from three to seven years, at the expiration of which he was to be disposed of as a servant for seven years, and upon second conviction to suffer death.[234] In 1831 Congress passed a law to prevent the abduction and sale of free negroes from the District of Columbia.[235] It is quite evident from these laws that kidnapping was a very common crime. It does not appear, however, that they prevented it. Even as early as 1817 it was estimated by Torrey, who seems to have made a study of the subject, that several thousand legally free persons were toiling in servitude, having been kidnapped.[236] Free negro children were the ones who were most liable to be kidnapped,[237] for the reason probably that they were easier managed and less likely to have about them proofs of their freedom, though sometimes, indeed, even white children, whether being mistaken for negroes or not, were stolen and sold into slavery.[238] More than twenty free colored children were kidnapped in Philadelphia in 1825.[239] It is stated that some persons gained a livelihood by stealing negroes from the towns of the North and carrying them to the South for sale.[240] Statements similar to the following are often to be met with in the papers published in slavery times: "Four negro children, 18, 17, 9 and 5 years respectively--first two girls; last two boys--were kidnapped and carried off from Gallatin County, Illinois, on the evening of 5 ult. The father ... was tied while the children were taken away. The kidnapping gang is regularly organized and is increasing. The members are well known but cannot be punished on account of the disqualification of negroes as witnesses."[241] "About midnight on the 27th of September a party of 8 or 10 Kentuckians broke into the house of a Mr. Powell, in Cass County, Michigan, while he was absent. They drew their pistols and bowie knives and dragged his wife and three children from their beds, and bound them with cords and hurried them off to their covered wagons and started post haste for Kentucky."[242] Probably kidnapping was carried on even more extensively in the slave States themselves. "The Liberator," quoting from the "Denton (Md.) Journal" in 1849 says: