Coloured lithograph after Honoré Daumier and published by Chez Bauger, Rue du Croisant 16.

The work is one of a series of five images produced for the French journal Charivari. It shows a worker on a sugar cane plantation startled by his master. He explains his indolence by remarking that as long as the French eat sugar beet he does not need to work and can get as fat as he pleases on the sugar cane. The caption reads ‘Maître . . . moi pouvoir plus travailler li canne! . . . pendant que ti français, manger li sucre de li Betterave, moi avoir engraissi, moi pouvoir plus bougis de tout.’ This refers to the controversy at the time when the colonial planters persuaded the French government to support the production of sugar cane by placing a high duty on imported refined sugar.