Allowing a margin, however, and we may say the incumbent has a very
nice profit of from eighteen to twenty cents per day on each
prisoner. But, as no provision is made against the possibility of
the criminal eating his meat raw, he is very delicately forced to an
alternative which has another profitable issue for the sheriff; that
of taking a pint of diluted water, very improperly called soup. Thus
is carried out that ancient law of England which even she is now
ashamed to own. Our feelings are naturally roused against the
perpetration of such abuses upon suffering humanity. We struggle
between a wish to speak well of her whose power it is to practise
them, and an imperative duty that commands us to speak for those who
cannot speak for themselves.
These things could not exist if the public mind was properly
enlightened. It is unnecessary to spend many words in exposing such
palpable abuses, or to trace the cause of their existence and
continuance. One cause of this is the wilful blindness and silly
gasconade of some of those who lead and form public opinion. With
South Carolinians, nothing is done in South Carolina that is not
greater than ever was done in the United States-no battles were ever
fought that South Carolina did not win-no statesman was ever equal
to Mr. Calhoun-no confederacy would be equal to the Southern, with
South Carolina at its head-no political doctrines contain so much
vital element as secession, and no society in the Union is equal to
South Carolina for caste and elegance-not excepting the worthy and
learned aristocracy of Boston.
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