Yes, sir.

I will put it more definitely: As long as he is under the guidance and care of the proprietor of the plantation he prospers, the planter, as we express it in that country, "loaning him our aid"; we make it very expressive to the negro, we loan him our aid, that is, he must follow our advice, and he has learned to do that, and by doing that he accumulates; but when thrown upon his own resources--there are individual exceptions, of course, where a good many negroes prosper themselves when thrown upon their own resources in Arkansas--but as a general fact, where he leaves the guidance and care of the proprietor of a plantation and subjects himself just as any one else does to the common trading with storekeepers, in a very few years he loses what he has accumulated.
Q.Under these favorable circumstances which surround the laborer on the plantation one would think he ought to accumulate; but I understand you that as a rule he is rather improvident and fails to accumulate.

To what do you attribute that improvidence on the part of the negro laborer?
-- A.

It is simply from the want of a proper appreciation of the opportunities of advancement from his condition.

The negroes are just beginning, as I expressed it, to realize the responsibilities of life, and just as they begin to realize the responsibilities of life here, they begin to prosper.