town, are in general well fed, well clothed, not much expofed to
the weather, nor put to hard labor. Others in the country, whofe
principal food confifts of black fandy bread, and the offals of
butchers’ meat, who labor from morning to night in the field,
and thofe alfo who follow the arduous and daily talk of gathering
wood on the expofed fides o f the mountains, or in the
hot fands, are fubjedt to bilious fevers o f which they feldom
recover.
Few die by the hands of juftice. In the laft eight years n o
have been fentenced to death, 33 of whom were publicly
executed, and thefe were chiefly flaves. The reft were condemned
to labor during life at the public works. The confef-
fion o f a crime, where ftrong and concurring evidence could
not be produced, was fometimes extorted by the torture; and
breaking on the wheel was a capital puniihment. Thefe were
faid to be feldom put in pradtice; yet at the time they were
aboliihed, by order of His Majefty, the Court of Juftice urged
the neceflity o f their continuance, as proper engines of terror
for preventing the commifiion o f capital crimes, which, they
thought, fimple ftrangling with a cord would be infufficient to
effedt. Contrary, however, to the opinion of the Court of Juftice,
there have been fewer executions, fince the abolition of the
rack and torture, than had taken place in an equal period for
many years before : So much fo, indeed, that one of the public
executioners made an application for a penfion in lieu o f the
emoluments he ufed to receive for the breaking of legs and
arms. The fate of the other hangman was Angular enough :
On hearing that the abolition of the rack and torture was likely
to
to take place, he waited upon the chief magiftrate to know
from him whether it was the faihion among the Englilh to
break on the wheel. A few days after this he was found hanging
in his room. It was thought that the fear of ftarving, for
want of employment, on account of his having held fuch an
odious office, had operated fo powerfully on his mind as to
have led him to the perpetration of felf-murder. Under the
idea of conveying terror into the minds of the multitude, the
place of execution is eredted clofe to the fide of the great
avenue leading into the town. The firft objedt that prefents
itfelf to a ftranger, after pafling the Caftle, is a large gallows
flanked by wheels and engines of death— objeds not well
adapted for imprelfing any very favorable opinion either of the
humanity of the people or the lenity of their laws. Though
the cuftom o f moft European nations may have fandtioned
public punifhments, as warnings againft the commifiion of
crimes, the conftant expofure of the inftruments of death can
have little ihare in producing this effedt. The human mind,
by long habit, becomes reconciled to objedts that, for a time,
might have Created difguft and difmay; and nothing is more
likely to happen than that the unrefledting part o f the multitude
fhould turn into a fource of ridicule, when made too
familiar to them, what was intended to convey the fenfation
of terror.
There is, perhaps, no part of the world, out o f Europe, where
the introdudtion of flavery was lefs neceffary than at the Cape
of Good Hope. Nor would it ever have found its way into
this angle of Africa, had the fame fpirit of Batavian induftry,
which