The question about the slaves being self-supporting, is a question no longer. On St. Helena, and wherever else they have had the opportunity, the negroes have bought the titles to their little farms—or “plantations,” as they still ambitiously style them. They have erected their own cabins, secured whatever cheap furniture they contain, and clothed, themselves far better than their masters ever clothed them. All who have been established more than a year, have paid back to the Government the rations drawn in their first destitution. They have stocked their plantations, paying the highest prices, and often bidding against white men, at the auction sales of condemned Government property. I saw one man who had paid three hundred dollars in cash for a condemned Government horse, and plenty who had paid prices ranging from a hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. A single horse only, is needed to cultivate one of their little places; and the instances have been rare in which, after a year or two of work, the negro was not able to command enough money to secure it. Their purchases at the trade stores have been so liberal that the military authorities have occasionally been compelled to interfere, to prevent what they thought extravagance. Cloth they sometimes buy, in their new-born thrift, by the piece, to secure a lower price; flour they are able to get by the barrel, as an industrious Northern mechanic does. In the houses, chairs have made their appearance; dishes and knives and forks are no longer the rarities they were when our troops arrived. And, for whatever they have thus bought, be sure they have paid twice or thrice the New York price.