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Hamburg, Perry Co. Sept 30 67
JH Speed Esqr
My dear Sir, 
The condition of Freedmen here-abouts cannot fail to produce solicitudes in the minds of the Courts & justice who know the rapacity of employers. 
I hoped that the cheating & swindling which were so much practiced upon them last year with almost perfect impunity would not be repeated this year. In this I am constrained to acknowledge myself mistaken
The poor ignorant creatures in very many instances, at the beginning of the year, signed contracts that men not good & just between employer & employee & was the failure of the Crop. The avarice of the