[198] By an official document published in 1849, it appears that while wheat sold in Barcelona and Tarragona (places of consumption) at an average of more than 25 francs, the price at Segovia, in Old Castile, (a place of production,) not 300 miles distant, was less than 10 francs for the same quantity.—L'Espàgne en 1850, 131.
[199] North British Review, Nov. 1852, art. The Modern Exodus.
[200] M. de Jonnes, quoted by Mr. Wallis, p. 295.
[201] Wallis's Spain, chap: ix.
[202] It is a striking evidence of the injurious moral effect produced by the system which looks to the conversion of all the other nations of the world into mere farmers and planters, that Mr. Macgregor, in his work of Commercial Statistics, says, in speaking of the Methuen treaty, "we do not deny that there were advantages in having a market for our woollens in Portugal, especially one, of which, if not the principal, was the means afforded of sending them afterward by contraband into Spain."—Vol. ii. 1122.
[203] In the first half of this period the export was small, whereas in the last one, 1836 to 1840, it must have been in excess of the growth of population.
[204] From 1842 to 1845 the average crop was 2,250,000 bales, or half a million more than the average of the four previous years. From 1847 to 1850 the average was only 2,260,000 bales, and the price rose, which could not have been the case had the slave trade been as brisk between 1840 and 1845 as it had been between 1835 and 1840.
[205] See page 108, ante, for the sale of the negroes of the Saluda Manufacturing Company.
[206] The following passage from one of the journals of the day is worthy of careful perusal by those who desire to understand the working of the present system of revenue duties, under which the mills and furnaces of the country have to so great an extent been closed, and the farmers and planters of the country to so great an extent been driven to New York to make all their exchanges:—
"Mr. Matsell [chief of police, New York] tells us that during the six months ending 31st December, 1852, there have been 19,901 persons arrested for various offences, giving a yearly figure of nearly 40,000 arrests. * * * The number of arrests being 40,000, or thereabouts, in a population of say 600,000, gives a percentage of 6.6 on the whole number of inhabitants. We have no data to estimate the state of crime in Paris under the imperial régime; but in London the returns of the metropolitan police for 1850, show 70,827 arrests, out of a population of some two millions and a half, giving a percentage of less than three on the whole number of inhabitants. Thus crimes are in New York rather more than twice as frequent as in London. Indeed, if we make proper allowance for the superior vigilance, and organization of the metropolitan police of London, and for the notorious inefficiency of our own police force, we shall probably find that, in proportion to the population, there is in New York twice as much crime as in London. This is an appalling fact—a disgraceful disclosure."—New York Herald, March 21, 1853.