Thirty-nine stripes for harboring a runaway slave one hour.
For disobeying orders, imprisonment as long as the master chooses.
For riding on horseback, without written permission, or for keeping a dog, twenty-five lashes.
For rambling, riding, or going abroad in the night, or riding horses in the day without leave, a slave may be whipped, cropped, or branded on the cheek with the letter R, or otherwise punished, not extending to life, nor so as to unfit him for labor.
For beating the Patuxent river, to catch fish, ten lashes; for placing a seine across Transquakin and Chickwiccimo creeks, thirty-nine lashes by order of a justice.
For advising the murder of a person, one hundred lashes may be given.
A runaway slave may be put into jail, and the jailer must forthwith send a letter by mail, to the man whom the negro says is his owner. If an answer does not arrive at the proper time, the jailer must inflict twenty-five lashes, well laid on, and interrogate anew. If the slave's second statement be not corroborated by the letter from the owner, twenty-five lashes are again administered.—The act very coolly concludes thus: "and so on, for the space of six months, it shall be the duty of the jailer to interrogate and whip as aforesaid."
The letter may miscarry, the owner may reside at a great distance from the Post-Office, and thus long delays may occur—the ignorant slave may not know his master's christian name—the jailer may not spell it aright; but no matter—"It is the jailer's duty to interrogate and whip, as aforesaid."
The last authorized edition of the laws of Maryland, comprises the following: "If any slave be convicted of any petit treason, or murder, or wilfully burning of dwelling-houses, it may be lawful for the justices to give judgment against such slave to have the right hand cut off, to be hanged in the usual manner, the head severed from the body, the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters set up in the most public places of the county," &c.
The laws of Tennessee and Missouri are comparatively mild; yet in Missouri it is death to prepare or administer medicine without the master's consent, unless it can be proved that there was no evil intention. The law in Virginia is similar; it requires proof that there was no evil intention, and that the medicine produced no bad consequences.