The expense of boarding, clothes, taxes, and so forth, of a male slave, is estimated by Robert C. Hall, a Maryland planter, at $45 per annum; this in a climate but little milder than that of New York, and in a breeding state. By J. D. Messenger, Jerusalem, Virginia: "The usual estimate for an able-bodied labourer—three barrels of corn, and 250 pounds of well-cured bacon, seldom using beef or pork; peas and potatoes substitute about one-third the allowance of bread" (maize). By R. G. Morris, Amherst County, Va.: "Not much beef is used on our estates; bacon, however, is used much more freely, three pounds a week being the usual allowance. The quantity of milk used by slaves is frequently considerable."-Pat. Office Report, 1848."
On the most valuable plantation, with one exception, which I visited in the South, no meat was regularly provided for the slaves, but a meal of bacon was given them "occasionally."
Louisiana is the only State in which meat is required, by law, to be furnished the slaves. I believe the required ration is four pounds a week, with a barrel of corn (flour barrel of ears of maize) per month, and salt. (This law is a dead letter, many planters in the State making no regular provision of meat for their force.) In North Carolina the law fixes "a quart of corn per day" as the proper allowance of food for a slave. In no other States does the law define the quantity, but it is required, in general terms, to be sufficient for the health of the slave; and I have no doubt that suffering from want of food is rare. The food is everywhere, however, coarse, crude, and wanting in variety; much more so than that of our prison convicts.
Does argument, that the condition of free-labourers is, on the whole, better than that of slaves, or that simply they are generally better fed, and more comfortably provided, seem to
