USES TO WHICH [Chap. 



the hoil of which is eternal ; and I shall, I dare say, 

 tramp about the country and see scores of fami- 

 lies cf round-faced children stuffing away upon 

 one or the other of these articles of food. 



157. HoMANY. I never saw, that I know of, 

 any homany ; and it may, for ought I know, be 

 the same thing as mush. It is the general mode 

 of using the corn-meal in the southern part of 

 the United States, where it is, generally, the sole 

 food of the negroes, and invariably part of the 

 food cf the planter and his family, and a great 

 part of it too. The weekly allowance to a work- 

 ing negro, is ten pounds of the flint-corn, or 

 twelve pounds of the golden-corn. Judge, then, 

 what a nutritious thing this must be, for twelve 

 pounds of it to be sufficient to maintain a working 

 man for seven days : and let it not be supposed 

 the negroes are starved, or even stinted ; for it is 

 the owner's interest to keep his slave well, as much 

 as it is our interest to keep our horses or oxen 

 well. A comm.on working slave is worth from a 

 hundred to two hundred pounds ; not only his 

 strength, therefore, but his health is a great ob- 

 ject with his owner ; and we may be well assured, 

 that if a negro could do more work, or be caused 

 to live longer, or in better health, by any other 

 sort of food, he w^ould not live long upon ho- 

 many;' something else would soon be discovered; 

 resort would be had to flesh or to some other 



