erived from it. The writer has elsewhere estimated the cost of slave
labor at $20 per month, which statement has been questioned, because no
allowance was made for the increase of the live stock. Now it is well
understood that where the women are worked in the fields in such a
manner as to make their labor pay, the increase of live stock is much
smaller, and the business of breeding is left to the first families in
Virginia and other localities where the land has been exhausted (readers
will pardon a plain statement,--it will cause them to realize the full
horror of the business). The slaves in the cotton States increased from
1850 to 1860 33-88/100 per cent., in all the other slave States 9-61/100
per cent. The surplus increase in the cotton States, above the average,
was 190,632. Where did they come from?[C] At $900 each, this surplus
represents a capital of $171,568,800. How was this sum earned, and to
whom was it paid?

Let us examine the estimate of $20 per month, and, although it is
admitted that female field hands do not bear many children, take the
average increase of the country, or 2-335/1000 per cent. per annum.

The standard of value for an A 1 field hand is $100 for each cent per
pound of the price of cotton, say ten cents per pound, $1000, and the
standard of value for all the slaves upon a plantation is one-half the
value of a field hand.

Suppose a plantation stocked with
100 slaves, men, women, and piccaninnies,
at 8500 each, $50,000
Interest at 8 per cent., a low rate
for the South, 4,000
Customary allowance for life insurance
or mortality, 1,000
Overseer's wages, 1,000
House and provisions, 500
Doctor's fees, hospital, and medicines, 500
Renewal and repairs of negro quarters, 500
Clothing and food, at $1 per week
for each slave, 5,200
______
12,700

_Credit_.

Increase to keep good the mortality, 2
Annual gain, 2-335/1000, say 3
Gain, 5, at $500 2,500
Net cost, 10,200

The usual allowance for field hands is one-third,--allow it to be forty
in a hundred, the cost of each would be $255 per annum, or $21.25 per
month.

Let each one make his own allo