itable, as respects the labor, than
in the slave-islands,--costing but 1-1/5 cts. per lb.

Though the average price of land is fifty dollars an acre, the freed
negroes seldom squat on the public lands, but buy little farms of their
own. In 1858, the emancipated slaves had built, since 1834, 5187 houses,
in which 15,644 people resided. There were that year only 299 paupers in
the whole island. Education and morality had advanced. Owing to the wise
liberality of the planters, nearly _one-third_ of the whole revenue
of the island (L10,000) was appropriated to educational, charitable, and
religious purposes. The great proportion of the youth attend school. At
the time of emancipation, the whole number of scholars in all the
schools was 1886; in 1858, there were 52 schools with 4467 scholars, and
37 Sunday-schools with 6418. The number of illegitimate births was only
53 per cent., which is a much more favorable proportion than exists in
the other islands.

The planters all agree that emancipation has been an entire success. The
only drawback is a somewhat singular one, and illustrates the dependent
habits which slavery generates. Under their masters, the slaves were
always provided with sufficient medical attendance; but when free, they
had not the means or were not prudent enough to secure this, and the
consequence has been a great mortality of children, so that the births
now scarcely exceed the deaths.

An intelligent English traveller, writing on "Antigua and the Antiguans"
in 1844, says in regard to the question, whether the freed negro will
work, that he has often observed, when a piece of land was to be
_holed_ for sugar-cane by task-work, the negroes rising by one or
two o'clock in the morning during moonlight, going to the field and
accomplishing a usual day's work (300 cane-holes) by five or six o'clock
in the forenoon; then, after resting a short time, they were prepared
for another task, which they completed; and still had some hours left
for their own provision-grounds. When the heat is considered, and the
labor of digging one cane-hole, (a trench three or four feet square and
one foot deep,) we may imagine what the work of opening 600 in a day
must be. The same author states that plantations which could not find a
purchaser before emancipation are now worth L10,000. Another writer,
quoted by Cochin, says in 1845, with reference to the efficiency of
labor of the Antiguan negroes, and their employment of machin