Seizures for the payment of laborers. --Continued.

Name of By what Amount Amount Amount Balance

planta- authority seized. due disbursed on hand.

tion. laborers.

Ever- Major $1,239.

--------

$220. $1,019.

green. General 56 35

S. A. 21

Hurlbut.

Hard do. 1,936. $1,428. 1,936.

-------

Scrabble 00 18 00

Verret do. 1,070. 1,070. 994. 75.

and 29 29 92

Woodruff 37

Good do. 3,825. 3,815. 3,726. 99.

Hope. 61 36 46

15

Comrad. do. 486. 486. 256. 229.

20 20 22

98

Ariel. do. 851. 751. 851.

-------

06 57 06

Mayromne do. 2,747. 2,746. 2,746. .

08 93 93 15

Spaids. do. 764. 763. 103. 660.

65 65 07

58

McCutche do. 5,000. 3,745. 5,000.

-------

on. 00 93 00

Rost Her do. 2,646.

--------

--------

2,646.

mitage. 42

42

Sparks. do. 457. 457. 457.

-------

00 00 00

Providen do. 1,020.

--------

1,020.

-------

ce. 00 00

22,042. 15,265. 17,312. 4,730.

87 11 01

86

REMARKS. -Under the head "Amount disbursed" is included expense incurred in obtaining produce and disposing of the same; also the cost of temporary support of laborers abandoned by their employers. where it appears that more money was seized than was due laborers, was occasioned by the fact that the accounts on the plantations with the laborers could not be obtained at the time of the seizure, making it necessary to estimate the amount due. In some instances the amount due laborers is not yet ascertained. Of the $5,000 drawn from Weed, Witters & Co., what was not required to pay laborers has been returned upon ascertaining the amount due.

LABORS AND RESULTS.

The labors and annoyances connected with the execution of the provisions of orders warranting such services, together with those required in determining the amounts due laborers, the examination of accounts, the preparation of pay rolls for plantations, the visitation of plantations and the distribution of funds have been exceedingly severe. Were it not for the active support which I have received in this work from you, general, and from the provost-marshal's department, thousands of freedmen would have gone without their wages for the labor they had performed during the year. As it si I am happy to inform you that, though the year has been marked by unparalleled disaster and prostration to the agricultural interests, there will not be more than 1 per cent. of the plantations where payment will not be secured to the freedmen. This is more than any man knowing the nature and extent of the losses of the planters could expect to see. Plantations whose laborers were supposed to have been hopelessly deprived of their earnings have been and are now being paid in full, under the wise provisions of the labor regulations enforced by your authority.

WITHERING CONDITION OF THE OLD LAND ARISTOCRACY.

What was reaped from the French Revolution to the large land estates of France is being realized by Louisiana, as the most sweeping result of the war which she herself helped to inaugurate. The disasters of the past season have been so great as to almost sweep from their position nearly every planter in the Department of the Gulf. It is certain that another such year will hardly leave any of the old planters on their feet. Their estates are so swallowed up in debt and so covered over with mortgages that with additional weight like that of the failure last season they would sink away and the old planting aristocracy would be gone. Even with fair crops it will be impossible to prevent a very early change in the ownership of the plantations. The thing is inevitable. I am informed by the planters generally that they cannot survive the shock which has come upon them from the