The New Orleans newspapers during all this period give evidence of the domestic trade. It was very common during the shipping season to see advertisements to the effect that the subscriber, a negro trader, had received, or had just arrived from Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas or elsewhere, with a large lot of negroes which were offered for sale. Usually the number would be given as fifty, seventy-five, or even a hundred. This would be qualified by the statement that they would be constantly receiving fresh lots. The same advertisement would continue in the same paper for months and even years. Sometimes half a dozen of these could be found in a single issue of a paper. It would be impossible even to approximate from this source the number sold during any given time, for it is likely the number offered for sale bore but little relation to the actual number sold. The States of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas were most conspicuous in these advertisements.[173] Writers on the subject seem to be pretty well agreed that during this period, or during the fifties, about 25,000 slaves were annually sold South from the Northern slave States.[174] It is interesting to notice in this connection what the Census Reports have to show. But in reading it should be remembered that no account is taken of the sale of slaves except as they took place between the buying and selling States. So the sale of slaves between Virginia and Maryland are not indicated nor those between Mississippi and Alabama.