The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

tics on all the estates which I visited was that the able-
bodied negroes begin the day's work at half•past four
o'clock a.m., and at ten o'clock have an hour for breakfast.
Then, resumint work, go on till sunset, when they get
dinner and another hour's rest, after which they work on
in unremitting toil till midnight, thus working eighteen
hours out of the twenty-four, and with only four for sleep.
The system is so thoroughly organised that no one can
relax his efforts without being liable to punishment. On
the majority of estates, there is one " driver" or under
overseer for every ten ablebodied slaves. The slaves that
take in the cane in wiggons from the fields to the sugar-
house usually do so in companies of ten, over whom a
Creole "driver" is set, mounted on horseback, with a
whip in his hand and cutlass by his side. I was told by
one planter, who was working his negroes on the Sunday,
that a holiday was usually allowed once a week ; but I
found others, well acquainted with the subject, who gave
me a very different account of matters. On one large
estate which I visited, the practice was that, so long as
the machinery held good, there was no stopping, Sunday
or Saturday, during the crushing season.

The following account of a slave sale is
worth quotation :
The first slave to be sold was put up for sale, standing
on the platform beside the auctioneer, and the bidding went
on very rapidly among a crowd of about a hundred persons.
He was a stout young mulatto, well dressed, and with so little
of the appearance of a slave about him, that 1 was looking
fur the object of this active competition among those who
sat below. At length he was knocked down at 1,300 dols.
('631.), after which he stepped off the platform. The
next was a young woman, whose qualifications were well
rehearsed as being a good cook, could speak French and
English; she sold for 1,130 dols. Two other household
servants, at 900 dole. each, one of whom could speak
English, French, and German. A man and wife, who were
put up as field-hands, brought 1,000 dots. An old woman
sold at 340 dols. She was the only one who appeared to be
much concerned about this strange scene, fur she began to
weep when the bidding slackened. The rest of the slaves
were not sold, as the prices were deemed too low. How-
ever, the auctioneer, a Frenchman, speaking alternately in
French and Eng'ish, did his part with great energy. Often
would lie seize " the boys " by the arms, and maintain that
such " strong chunky lielthhands" were going far below
their value. Among the slaves for sale was a fiir mulatto
boy, about seven or eight years of age, neatly dressed in
green pants, brown surtout, and white hat with a band of
crape round it. Altogether he looked quite a little gentle.
man, and as he romped about during the sale appeared
perfectly happy, amid all that was going on. His mother
and the other slaves who were not sold were ordered to go
to the "office " of the auctioneer, and the little fellow went
away dancing round her as merrily as if he had been at
school.

This is a little touch of nature which shows
that Mr. Russell has an eye and heart fur
something beyond turnips and maize, though
he rightly, as a practical man, turns his atten-
tion in the main to substantial rather than
sentimental points of view. The following
remarks on malaria are too important to be
omitted

Some years ago, I pointed out that it was a well-under
stood tact in Scotland, when some of its inhabitants were
very subject to ague, that wet clay soil produced that
disease, while wet peaty soil did not. The character of the
decomposition of the vegetable matter taking place on
clay and on peuty soils being different, the emanations
arising from the former seem to have a deleterious in-
fluence on the human system, while the latter are quite
innocuous. Indeed, our peat•mosses in Scotland have
decided antiseptic properties, which no doubt serve to
retard decomposition; and they afford peculiar products.
Among these, the vegetable extract that imparts the dark-
brown colour to many of our Highland rivers is well known.
Now, it is curious that all the swampy districts which are
healthy in the Southern States are characterised by the
water being coloured by a similar vegetable extract. In
the Great Dismal Swamp of Carolina, Sir Charles Lyall
stye, " The water is transparent, though tinged by a pale
brown colour, like that of our peatmosses."—Lyall'a Tra-
vels in North America, vol. i. p. 147. It appea►s that all
the water in the swamps of the Southern States is of the
same character, and it is very probable that this fact is
indicative of vegetable accumulations, from which it pro-
ceeds, undergoing that particular species of decay which is
not unhealthy.

Dr. Hooker, in his " Himalayan Journals," writes :
" The climate of Chattuc is excessively damp and hot
throughout the year, but, though stink amid interminable
swamps, the place is perfectly healthy. Such, indeed, is
the character of the climate throughout the Jheels, where
fever and agues are rare ; and, though no situation can
appear more malarious to the common observer than
Silhet and Cachago, they are in fact eminently salubrious.
These facts admit of no explanation in the present state
of our knowledge of endemic diseaseQ. Much may be
attributed to the amount and purity (?) of the water, the
equability of the climate, the absence of forests, and of
sudden changes from wet to dry; but such facts afford no
satisfactory explanation. The water, as 1 have above said,
is if a rich chesnut brown in the narrow creeks of the Jheels,
and is golden yellow by transmitted light, owing, no doubt,
as in bog•water and that of dunghills, to a vegetable ex-
tract, and probably the presence of carbonated hydrogen."
The climate of the Southern States of America is in
every way the opposite to that of the Jheele, for it is any-
thing but equable ; forests abound, and the changes from
we., to dry are great and sudden. The only conditions that
seem to be common to the healthy swamps both of America
and of India are large accumulations of vegetable matter,
rescubliog our pestlhooseg, mut the presence of this