Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/246

 CHAPTER VI.

SLAVERY AS A POOR-LAW SYSTEM.

In the year 1846 the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States addressed a circular of inquiries to persons engaged in various businesses throughout the country, to obtain information of the national resources. In reply to this circular, forty-eight sugar-planters, of St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, having compared notes, made the following statement of the usual expenses of a plantation, which might be expected to produce, one year with another, one hundred hogsheads of sugar:—

Household and family expenses                                      $1,000 Overseer's salary                                                     400 Food and clothing for 15 working hands, at $30                        450 Food and clothing for 15 old negroes and children, at $15             225 1-1/2 per cent. on capital invested (which is about $40,000), to keep it in repair                                                600 2,675

50 hogsheads sugar, at 4 cents per pound (net proceeds)                                                  $2,000 25 hogsheads sugar, at 3 cents per pound (net proceeds)                                                     750 25 hogsheads sugar, at 2 cents per pound (net proceeds)                                                     500 4,000 gallons of molasses, at 10 cents                         400 3,650 Leaving a profit of                                                  $975