He was punished by several days imprisonment.

With no little astonishment in view of such a decision, we inquired of Maj.

C.whether the planters had the power to require their people to work as late as half past ten at night.

He replied, "Certainly, _the crops must be secured at any rate, and if they are suffering, the people must be pressed the harder_."[A] [Footnote A: We learned subsequently from various authentic sources, that the master has _not_ the power to compel his apprentices to labor more than nine hours per day on any condition, except in case of a fire, or some similar emergency.

If the call for labor in crop-time was to be set down as an emergency similar to a "fire," and if in official decisions he took equal latitude, alas for the poor apprentices!] VI.