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faithfully for twelve months, that they have taken up in rations and clothing more than their share of the cotton will bring at the present prices. Dissatisfaction much follow the present system, until the Freedmen are sufficiently educated to keep their own accounts, and comprehend the relative value of wages and produce.
Already the Freedmen are beginning to find a great difficulty in making contracts for 1868. There is very little demand for labor, as many of the planters are entirely ruined, and others are discouraged by the results of the past two years. Many of the best plantations in this Sub District will be uncultivated during the coming year, and planters who have employed from ten to eighty hands, will engage only one or two to raise produce for home consumption only. 
[[Footnote 1]] Whole families of Freedmen have in many instances, started Northward, in search of work. Some are travelling to the cities and some to farms, many walking, and carrying their baggage and bedding on a mule, others sending their baggage upon the train and journeying to their destination on foot. 
There is also a class, which it is feared will increase as the winter becomes more settled, who are living upon plunder, stealing corn, stock and any supplies that may be left unwatched. It seems an inevitable consequence of the entire destitution to which many of them are reduced, by the expiration of the year's engagements, and the entire failure of their hopes of a surplus after expenses were paid out of the crop. Men whose families have been fed by their employers during the past year, are now thrown out of work, with a wife and children dependant upon them for shelter and food.

[[Footnote 1]] Condition & How Paid.