If a slave strike a white, he is to be condemned to death; but if a master kill his slave by torture, no white witnesses being present, he may clear himself by his own oath. (Louisiana.)--Just and equal! The law decrees fine and imprisonment to the person who shall release the servant of another from the torture of the iron collar. (Louisiana.)--Just and equal! It decrees a much smaller fine, without imprisonment, to the man who shall torture him with red-hot irons, cut out his tongue, put out his eyes, and scald or maim him. (Ibid.)--Just and equal! It decrees the same punishment to him who teaches him to write as to him who puts out his eyes.--Just and equal! As it might be expected that only very ignorant and brutal people could be kept in a condition like this, especially in a country where every book and every newspaper are full of dissertations on the rights of man, they therefore enact laws that neither he nor his children to all generations, shall learn to read and write.--Just and equal! And as, if allowed to meet for religious worship, they might concert some plan of escape or redress, they enact that "no congregation of negroes, under pretence of divine worship, shall assemble themselves; and that every slave found at such meetings shall be immediately corrected _without trial_, by receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch or cowskin." (Law of Georgia, Prince's Digest, p. 447.)--Just and equal! Though the servant is thus kept in ignorance, nevertheless in his ignorance he is punished more severely for the same crimes than freemen.--Just and equal! By way of protecting him from over-work, they enact that he shall not labor more than five hours longer than convicts at hard labor in a penitentiary! They also enact that the master or overseer, not the slave, shall decide when he is too sick to work.--Just and equal! If any master, compassionating this condition of the slave, desires to better it, the law takes it out of his power, by the following decisions: 1. That all his earnings shall belong to his master, notwithstanding his master's promise to the contrary; thus making him liable for his master's debts.--Just and equal! 2. That if his master allow him to keep cattle for his own use, it shall be lawful for any man to take them away, and enjoy half the profits of the seizure.--Just and equal! 3. If his master sets him free, he shall be taken up and sold again.--Just and equal! If any man or woman runs away from this state of things, and, after proclamation made, does not return, any two justices of the peace may declare them outlawed, and give permission to any person in the community to kill then by any ways or means they think fit.--Just and equal!"