This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
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