4
BARBADOS.
The children however had not proper attendance when sick, as their parents were usually compelled to repay the time they devoted to them. The planters expected the parents would apprentice their children, and re sorted to severe measures to compel them to do so ; but the mothers resisted to extremity. It was at length found that it would not do to be so hard upon mothers. Some of the planters are now considerate, others se vere. A great grievance to which negros are subjected, is the practice of fining gangs in time for bad work. If an overseer is, or pretends to be, dissatisfied, he calls in one or two persons to look at the work, and then summons his people before the magistrate ; who mulcts the whole gang, idle and industrious together, in two, four, or even eight, of their Saturdays. It may here be mentioned, that we met in this is land a missionary from Berbice, who informed us that the apprentices in that colony were in a wretched state. He considered the apprenticeship to be a complete failure. There was not and could not be a medium between slavery and personal freedom. The magis trates were in the hands of the planters. The gover nor was well-meaning, but very much in the dark as to the actual working of the system ; as he formed his opinion on the official reports which he received. Very little is to be seen of the true state of the predial population of the colonies in or near the towns. The negros are greatly defrauded of their time. Speaking of their desire for instruction, he said many of them would gladly fetch and bring back on their shoulders, boys from his school to their own huts, a distance of three miles, in order to take a lesson from them in read ing ; and that they were delighted when they could obtain his permission for their little teachers to remain all night with them.