A continual system of provocation was kept up. Masters and their white subordinates would take produce from the provision-grounds of the apprentices without paying them. In fits of anger, they would sometimes destroy their little gardens, or take them away when the crops were growing. The magistrates were overwhelmed with complaints, most of them of a petty character. An overseer would call out, "Work faster, you black rascal! or I'll strike you." If the apprentice answered, "You _can't_ strike me now," he was dragged before a magistrate, and punished for insolence. The fact that the power of punishment was transferred by law from master to magistrates proved very insufficient protection; for the magistrates were generally planters, or the friends of planters. If one of them manifested a disposition to be humane, or even just, toward the apprentices, machinations were immediately on foot to get him turned out of office. The result was, that a large proportion of them were unprincipled men, the mere selfish tools of despotism. The negroes expressed it concisely by saying: "If massa say flog 'em, he flog 'em; if massa say send 'em to de tread-mill, he send 'em." Their common complaint of magistrates was, "Dey be poisoned wid massa's turtle-soup;" that being their way of defining the influence of good dinners. One of the missionaries complained to Mr. Thome, of a whipping machine ingeniously contrived for torture, and placed very near his house. He said when news came that the Governor was about to visit the village, the magistrate caused the machine to be removed and hidden among the bushes. Mr. Thome was present at a weekly court, where a just and humane magistrate presided. He says: "Managers, overseers, and bookkeepers, all set upon him like bloodhounds on a stag. They seemed to gnash their teeth upon him in their impotent rage. He assured us that he met with similar indignities on most of the estates, every time he held his courts. From what we saw that day, we were convinced that only very fearless and conscientious men could be faithful magistrates in Jamaica." Mr. Thome tells an anecdote related to him by the special magistrate in whose presence it occurred. It shows how hard it was, for men long accustomed to arbitrary power, to submit to the salutary restraints of law. The magistrate had fined a manager $108 for various acts of oppression complained of and proved by his apprentices. The culprit requested permission to speak; which being granted, he broke forth, in an agony of passion, "O my God! Has it come to this? Is my conduct to be questioned by these people? Is my authority to be interfered with by strangers? O my God! my God!" He fell back into the arms of one of his bookkeepers, and was carried out of court in a convulsion fit.