Our whole assessed valuation was about $1,500,000 at that time.

This was brought out by a promise that if the appropriation was made, the levees on our river should be built and this road would run on the levees.

At that time the whole of the local government in Chicot County was in the hands of men who did not own any property in the county, and had just come down there and been elected by the negroes, who have a very large majority in that county.

This tax was a very great imposition upon us.

At that time there was a negro attorney at Lake Village, who was one of the prime movers in this thing.