INFORMATION FOR EM 1 GRAM'S. 2/^ 



Imlay, who visited this State soon after the war with England, and wrote 

 very instructive descriptive letters to a friend in London, thus tells the 

 story of their success : * 



Such has been the progress of this country (Kentucky) from dirty 

 stations or forts, and smoky huts, that it has expanded into fertile fields', 

 blushing orchards, pleasant gardens, luxuriant sugar groves, neat and 

 commodious houses, rising villages, and trading towns. Ten years have 

 produced a difference in the population and comforts of this country, 

 which to be portrayed in just colors would appear marvelous. To have 

 implicit faith or belief that such things have happened, it is first neces- 

 sary to be (as I have been) a spectator of such events. 



Compare this with the condition of the farmers of Kansas, settling- 

 along lines of railway, with easy communication with the world, yet 

 calling every few years for food and clothing, counties issuing bonds and 

 levying a tax upon posterity to keep farmers from starving, until the 

 taxation has reached in some counties over ^5 on each ;^ioo worth of 

 taxable property, f 



The memory of the recent "exodus" of many negroes from the 

 South to Kansas is fresh, and how it was brought about by crack- 

 brained or ignorant "philanthropists," dishonest agents, and persons 

 willing to sacrifice the best interests of the deluded negro for the paltry 

 commissions from the sales of lands and railway tickets. It is a note- 

 worthy fact, that throughout the South there has never been want nor 

 suffering among the negroes in the agricultural districts, J notwithstand- 

 ing they were thrown upon their own resources when set free, without 

 property of any kind, in a country recently devastated by war. 



Yet, when the negroes went to Kansas, many of them of the most 

 thrifty, with the accumulated savings of several years, there came from 

 that State tales of suffering, want, and starvation, calling for vigorous 

 measures of relief all over the country. 



* London, printed for J. Debrett, opposite Burlington House, Piccadilly, 1792. 



IThe average rate of taxes for the entire sixty-nine counties of Kansas was, in 1878,, 

 ^3.27 as compiled from data furnished the State Board by the Auditor of that State. 

 (See Report Kansas Board of Agriculture for the years 1877-8, third edition, page 391.) 

 The average rate in Kentucky, city, county, and State combined, is not over 6o_ cents- 

 on the $100 worth of property; and if we exclude a few of the largest cities, it will 

 average, for a large part of the State, less than 60 cents. With this small tax the State 

 has paid off all debts ; invested over $6,000,000 in the construction of turnpike roads 

 and improvements of rivers, and gives annually to the public schools $800,000. Many 

 counties also take stock in the building of turnpike roads within their borders, and add- 

 to the amount donated by the State for school purposes. All of which is included 

 in the rate above given. 



IRead in this connection article entitled "A Georgia Plantation," Scribner's Monthly;. 

 April, 1881 (Vol. XXIj, 



