Humanity and kindness were the rule which marked the treatment of the slaves in the South. For this the Southern people have claimed no credit. A man deserves no credit for taking care of a $50 cow. Much more will his very self interest treat well a $250 horse. How much more to his interest to feed, house, clothe and nurse a $1,500 negro. As in all things human, there were evils connected even with Southern slavery, and Southern patriots rejoice that it is all gone. But history will only render simple justice to the men and women of the South when it records that any real cruel treatment of the negro was very rare. The writer's life has nearly all been spent in the negro belts of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, and he knew of but three cases where slave owners were charged with habitual cruel treatment of the slaves. One of these, in the Alabama canebrake, gave his slaves the best of medical attention, but they were evidently not supplied with the clothing they ought to have. The other two, one man and one woman, had the reputation of giving way to a cruel temper when chastising their slaves. All of them stood branded with public odium. The truth is that in Southern slavery there was a sort of mutuality. The owner belonged to the negro as truly as the negro belonged to the white man. In many respects the master rendered service to the slave. The State laws, to say nothing of humanity and religion, made it so, but you say "it was a very pleasant sort of slavery for the master." Yes, and a very pleasant sort of slavery for the negro. They were the jolliest set of working people the world ever saw. The chains of the negro were not the only shackles removed by the great revolution. When the time came the slave owners felt that a great burden had been rolled from their own shoulders. As far as the writer knows, the universal feeling of the slave owners was expressed in the language of a good old couple who had worked hard and finally become the owners of a hundred slaves. Said the old man, "I didn't enslave the negroes, and I didn't set them free, and I am glad the whole of the great responsibility has been lifted from my shoulders." His wife, sitting by, said, "I feel like a new woman. I am now set free from a great burden."