On what part of the body were the slave women whipped; and what instruments of punishment were used? I inquired.

Sometimes they were whipped on the back, but most frequently on the bottom; the instruments used were various; there was the hickory switch, the strap and the paddle.

What is the paddle?

It is a round flat piece of wood fixed to a long handle, and it was always used on the bottom.

It does not draw blood, but each stroke raises a blister on the skin and bruises the flesh. The hickory switch, if used with any degree of force, will cut the skin and draw blood. There was another terrible instrument of punishment called ’the cowhide,’ but it was very seldom used on women.

You seem to know all about whipping. Now tell me how it was you came to be living in a slave state, said I.

I was helping to run a station on the ’underground railroad’; but I suppose you don’t know what an ’underground station’ is.

No, I do not, what is it?

’Underground railroad stations’ were houses in which the abolitionists used to conceal the runaway slaves. There were a number of these ’stations’ in various parts of the South, and the runaway was forwarded secretly by night from one ’station’ to another, till he or she finally got to a free state. It was dangerous work, because assisting a slave to escape was against the laws of the South, and to do so was considered a very great crime. Any man or woman caught at such work was sure of getting a long term of imprisonment with hard labor in the State’s prison. Besides, everyone’s hand was against the abolitionist; not only the slave-owners, but also the ordinary white people who did not own a single slave, and it often happened that abolitionists were lynched. They were tarred and feathered, or ridden on a rail or made to suffer in some other way by bands of lawless men.