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and who has promised them that he will come again in the fall. With commendable honesty he told the people that if their employers charged them 50 cents to come to the meeting (the forfeit of voluntary absence) "to pay it" and then added disconnectedly that in the fall when they went to vote if they are troubled any from that cause, there was a way to settle the affair. 

If this was honestly understood 'twere very well, but these remarks were not, and for one I have my doubts if they were intended to be, and the consequence is that many of the employees now think they can come and go just when they have  a mind, no matter how much the crops, heavily now in weeds and grass, may demand labor; there are some I have met who have thought that were they charged 50 cents per day, there would be a power, notwithstanding the fairest of contracts, that would confiscate the lands of their employer, for it,

Put the case in its mildest light and say that Mr Bowen did not intend the freedmen should infer this from his remarks, I respectfully submit that at least