Squatter sovereign., 1856-04-22
ATcHsoN KANSAS TERRITORY, TUESDAY %, 1856

many places, the kittee has been supeTsed-
ed by the more simple plan of violently
COMPRISING the hands under fiat board,
on which heavy pressure is laid, some
fumes ever by thepeons sfanding upon 1T ;
or of compelling the sufferer to interiace
his fingers, and deliver him over to the
iron gripe of the poems, Tor policemen,
who sometimes rub their hands with sand,
in order to give them firmer gripe. In
other cases, the fingers are bent back until
the pain becomes uncomfortable.
Occasionally man is held aloft from
the ground, by the ears. by the hair, and
even by the mustachio; and the latter tor
ture, in some instances, is applied so
sayagely as to tear away the mustachio by
the roots. Sometimes sort of bastinado
is inflicted; sometimes violent blows >on
the shin, the ankles, the elbows, Or other
highly sensitive points, prolonged INNER
sion in the water tanks or the river; for
chile compression of the arms, the thighs,
and even the body, by tying coil OF coir
rope round them, and then applying cold
water, so as to cause it to contract and
sink into the flesh; burning it with hot
iron; hanging heavy stones round the
neck; the stocks; tying two Or more in
dividuals together by the hair, so that every
movement is attended with pain.
| &. VKT:II l., Tor ovoropIa tba.
it is not uncommon TO apply TO the most
sensitive parts of the body, (enclosed in a
cloth or a cocoanut she'll, or other similar
receptacle biting insect or reptile, such
as the poollah, or carpenter beetle, and
leave it to gnaw the flesh of the miserable
sufferer !-that, by a further refinement of
cruelty. meant to combine both pain and
humiliation, the delaulters are sometimes
tied by the hair to the tail of a donkey or
buffalo e-that they are occasionally hung
up with the head downwards ?-and that
it is an ordinary practice to put pepper or
powdered chiilies into the eyes or the
nostrils, and to apply these and similar IL
ritating drugs in other ways too revolving
to be limited at!"
There is long and frightful detail of a
great variety Of tortures, which the re-
viewer declares show "an amount Of
hateful ingenuity which it is difficult to
conceive OF believe, but that they are given
in the report. After detailing many
shocking cases of the dying of men under
these various forms of torture, and of
women, by having the kittee applied to
their breasts" to enforce the collection,
sometimes, of tesc pence only, the COM
missioners confess that :. the infiction of
such descriptions of treatment as they had
described, has come in the course of CEN
turies, to be looked on as cus!omary-a
thing of course-and to be submitted to
as an everyday, unavoidable necessity" "
Though these details have recently been
spread before the British public, they seem
to have created no sensation, because,
doubtless, the sufferers are not negroes,
but of race regarded as Caucasian, like
the English themselves.
Such is the condition of an empire
whose example we are denounced for fail
ing to initiate, both by the British press
and its abolition allies in this country.
Under this system, grinding and mon
strous as it is, the whole population is
rapidly perishing in many of the provinces,
and the most fertile lands are becoming
desert wastes. These miserable laborers
are mainly engaged in the cultivation of
| tropical productions, to supply the demand
of the markets of Great Britain and those
Of her customers. 1t was soon seen. how
ever, that owing to the superior skill and
energy Of the planters of the South, they
were able, by means OF slave labor, to
produce cotton. sugar, rice, Se., at lower
rates, and thus undersell similar articles
grown in India. The British government
likewise held certain islands in the West
Indies, cultivated by negro slaves, but as
the amount of her interest there was COM
paratiyely small, she determined to saeri-
ice it for what she regarded as more
important object. She accordingly eman-
cipated her negro slaves in the West
| Indies, and thereby reduced the islands TO
a state of unprcductive barbarism. She
then set in motion. system Of operations
TO force the United States to emaccipate
her slaves in like manner, expecting, il
this was accomplished, TO be able TO sup
ply the world at her own prices with tropi-
cal productions from her great eastern pos
sessions. This, however, was not the sole
motive that Influenced her conduct. The
United States was her great commercial
rival, and il was then seen that, owing to
cur more rapid increase, we should soon
surpass her. as in fact we have already
done, in The AMOUNT of cur tonnage. The