For beating the Patuxent river, to catch fish, ten lashes; for placing a seine across Transquakin and Chickwiccimo creeks, thirty-nine lashes by order of a justice.
For advising the murder of a person, one hundred lashes may be given.
A runaway slave may be put into jail, and the jailer must forthwith send a letter by mail, to the man whom the negro says is his owner. If an answer does not arrive at the proper time, the jailer must inflict twenty-five lashes, well laid on, and interrogate anew. If the slave's second statement be not corroborated by the letter from the owner, twenty-five lashes are again administered.--The act very coolly concludes thus: "and so on, for the space of _six months_, it shall be the duty of the jailer to interrogate and whip as aforesaid."
The letter may miscarry, the owner may reside at a great distance from the Post-Office, and thus long delays may occur--the ignorant slave may not know his master's christian name--the jailer may not spell it aright; but no matter--"It is the jailer's duty to interrogate and whip, as aforesaid."
The last authorized edition of the laws of Maryland, comprises the following: "If any slave be convicted of any petit treason, or murder, or wilfully burning of dwelling-houses, it may be lawful for the justices to give judgment against such slave to have the right hand cut off, to be hanged in the usual manner, the head severed from the body, the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters set up in the most public places of the county," &c.
The laws of Tennessee and Missouri are comparatively mild; yet in Missouri it is _death_ to prepare or administer medicine without the master's consent, unless it can be _proved_ that there was no evil intention. The law in Virginia is similar; it requires proof that there was no evil intention, and that the medicine produced no bad consequences.
To estimate fully the cruel injustice of these laws, it must be remembered that the poor slave is without religious instruction, unable to read, too ignorant to comprehend legislation, and holding so little communication with any person better informed than himself, that the chance is, he does not even know the _existence_ of half the laws by which he suffers. This is worthy of Nero, who caused his edicts to be placed so high that they could not be read, and then beheaded his subjects for disobeying them.