No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-off threw this big island outof Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi. 'Middle of the river' on oneside of it, 'channel' on the other. That is as I understand the problem.
Whether I have got the details right or wrong, this FACT remains:
that here is this big and exceedingly valuable island of four thousand acres,thrust out in the cold, and belonging to neither the one State nor the other;paying taxes to neither, owing allegiance to neither. One man ownsthe whole island, and of right is 'the man without a country.'
Island 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it overand joined it to Mississippi. A chap established a whiskeyshop there, without a Mississippi license, and enrichedhimself upon Mississippi custom under Arkansas protection(where no license was in those days required).
We glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat or other moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always:
stretch upon stretch of almost unbroken forest, on both sidesof the river; soundless solitude. Here and there a cabin or two,standing in small openings on the gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarter or half-mile fartherto the front, and gradually been pulled farther and farther backas the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for instance,where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yardsin three months, so we were told; but the caving banks hadalready caught up with them, and they were being conveyedrearward once more.
Napoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the old times;but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is Greenville fullof life and activity, and making a considerable flourish in the Valley;having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doing a gross trade of$2,500,000 annually. A growing town.
There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company,an enterprise which is expected to work wholesome results.
Colonel Calhoun, a grandson of the statesman, went to Bostonand formed a syndicate which purchased a large tract of land onthe river, in Chicot County, Arkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is to work on a cash basis:
buy at first hands, and handle their own product; supply their negrolaborers with provisions and necessaries at a trifling profit,say 8 or 10 per cent.; furnish them comfortable quarters,etc., and encourage them to save money and remain on the place.
If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain,they propose to establish a banking-house in Greenville,and lend money at an unburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent.
is spoken of.
The trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of plantersand steamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land,were without cash capital; had to hypothecate both land and cropto carry on the business. Consequently, the commission dealerwho furnishes the money takes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent., and 2 per cent. for negotiating the loan.
The planter has also to buy his supplies through the same dealer,paying commissions and profits. Then when he ships his crop,the dealer adds his commissions, insurance, etc. So, taking itby and large, and first and last, the dealer's share of that cropis about 25 per cent.'
where the people are under subjection to rates of interest rangingfrom 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity ofpurchasing their crops in advance even of planting, at these rates,for the privilege of purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent.
profit?'--EDWARD ATKINSON.]>
A cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profiton planting, in his section: One man and mule will raise tenacres of cotton, giving ten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; costof producing, say $350; net profit, $150, or $15 per acre.
There is also a profit now from the cotton-seed, which formerlyhad little value--none where much transportation was necessary.
In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton four hundred are lint,worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundred pounds of seed,worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the stems willnot be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for eachbale of cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems,and that these are very rich in phosphate of lime and potash;that when ground and mixed with ensilage or cotton-seed meal(which is too rich for use as fodder in large quantities),the stem mixture makes a superior food, rich in all theelements needed for the production of milk, meat, and bone.
Heretofore the stems have been considered a nuisance.
Complaint is made that the planter remains grouty toward the former slave,since the war; will have nothing but a chill business relation with him,no sentiment permitted to intrude, will not keep a 'store' himself,and supply the negro's wants and thus protect the negro's pocketand make him able and willing to stay on the place and an advantageto him to do it, but lets that privilege to some thrifty Israelite,who encourages the thoughtless negro and wife to buy all sortsof things which they could do without--buy on credit, at big prices,month after month, credit based on the negro's share of the growing crop;and at the end of the season, the negro's share belongs to the Israelite,'
the negro is in debt besides, is discouraged, dissatisfied, restless, and bothhe and the planter are injured; for he will take steamboat and migrate,and the planter must get a stranger in his place who does not know him,does not care for him, will fatten the Israelite a season, and follow hispredecessor per steamboat.
It is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by itshumane and protective treatment of its laborers, that itsmethod is the most profitable for both planter and negro;and it is believed that a general adoption of that methodwill then follow.
And where so many are saying their say, shall not thebarkeeper testify? He is thoughtful, observant, never drinks;endeavors to earn his salary, and WOULD earn it if therewere custom enough. He says the people along here inMississippi and Louisiana will send up the river to buyvegetables rather than raise them, and they will comeaboard at the landings and buy fruits of the barkeeper.
Thinks they 'don't know anything but cotton;' believes theydon't know how to raise vegetables and fruit--'at least the mostof them.' Says 'a nigger will go to H for a watermelon'
('H' is all I find in the stenographer's report--means Halifax probably, though that seems a good way to gofor a watermelon). Barkeeper buys watermelons for five centsup the river, brings them down and sells them for fifty.
'Why does he mix such elaborate and picturesque drinks for thenigger hands on the boat?' Because they won't have any other.
'They want a big drink; don't make any difference whatyou make it of, they want the worth of their money.
You give a nigger a plain gill of half-a-dollar brandy forfive cents--will he touch it? No. Ain't size enough to it.
But you put up a pint of all kinds of worthless rubbish, and heavein some red stuff to make it beautiful--red's the main thing--and he wouldn't put down that glass to go to a circus.'
All the bars on this Anchor Line are rented and ownedby one firm. They furnish the liquors from theirown establishment, and hire the barkeepers 'on salary.'
Good liquors? Yes, on some of the boats, where there arethe kind of passengers that want it and can pay for it.
On the other boats? No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemento drink it. 'Brandy? Yes, I've got brandy, plenty of it;but you don't want any of it unless you've made your will.'
It isn't as it used to be in the old times. Then everybody traveledby steamboat, everybody drank, and everybody treated everybody else.
'Now most everybody goes by railroad, and the rest don't drink.'
In the old times the barkeeper owned the bar himself, 'and wasgay and smarty and talky and all jeweled up, and was the toniestaristocrat on the boat; used to make $2,000 on a trip.
A father who left his son a steamboat bar, left him a fortune.
Now he leaves him board and lodging; yes, and washing,if a shirt a trip will do. Yes, indeedy, times are changed.
Why, do you know, on the principal line of boats onthe Upper Mississippi, they don't have any bar at all!
Sounds like poetry, but it's the petrified truth.'
Refreshments and Ethics
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