JAMAICA.
253
Statement of C Y R U s W A L L A C E , an apprentice, from Glasgow estate :—" The old living before was better than now. If we come to the Bay, (Savanna la Mar,) to make a complaint, we are punished for it when the magistrate come upon the estate. We are obliged to work on our Fridays and Saturdays. The magistrate threaten we and make we consent; he say, 'if any person deny working on Saturday, bring them down to the Bay, and I shall cat them.' About four weeks ago, on a Friday, shellblow, the busha, (overseer,) ordered the gang to work the next day, (Saturday.) I say, I can't work, because I have a pain in my back, and want to take a dose of salts, as it is my own day. The constable said, if I would not make the fire, (throughout the day at the boiling-house,) he would lock me up. I asked him to take me to the busha, who said I should be locked up, and to-morrow be taken down to the Bay to be catted. I was locked up that night, (Friday,) in my wet clothes, and all the next day without food or water ; and when I was let out, it was so late I could not go to my own house, but was obliged to lie down in the floor of the hospital : I was not brought before the magistrate. The constable, (driver,) lock you up when him like ; the bookkeeper lock you up when him like ; when the busha come, they tell him, and he fasten you in the dark hole better. When the magis trate come on the property, they bring you before him^ and he know all about you before you come. If you offer to speak for yourself, he hold his finger and say, 'not a word.' Mr. W A L L A C E property, worse than anyxi property in the parish ; every property better than we. * If any person was to say—hem, in the field, the con stable take and lock you up ; and if the magistrate don't send you to dance the treadmill, ho send you to z