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make said crop, both of which are effectual against third parties; but the laborer, in whose sweat and patient toil a crop is made has no security in the products of his labor for the payment of his scanty wages. He is not even entitled to a pro-rata share with others interested, of the yield of his years labor. Thus the Land-lord and the Merchant can, under the Statute, wholly absorb the crop made by the Freedman, and send him adrift pennyless, and this has often been done within, my personal knowledge, and my county agents throughout my Dist. have reported a large number of cases of this character, has often occurred that Land-lords have leased their lands to worthless and irresponsible parties, who release them to Freedmen for a share of the crop; the crop having been gathered and divided, the second lessor settles with the Freedmen, receives and sells his share of the crop, and fails to pay to the land-lord the stipulated rent; whereupon the land-lord sues out an attachment on the products of the land belonging to the Freedmen, and holds it to secure the payment of the rental which is justly due only from the first lessee. In this manner the Freedmen are forced to pay the rent of the land which they cultivate, a second time. This infamous law practically gives to the land owner and the go-between, the lion's share of the crop, and leaves the laborer whose pay out to be secured before all others, to pick the scanty crumbs that may remain, and then to starve.

This villainous law, denying the Freedman any remedy, vouching safe to human right and grinding him deeper and still deeper in the dust of poverty and degradation, giving the lie to even an appearance of justice, humanity or common decency - is to be found upon the statue book of Alabama in this nineteenth century of the christian era; and although the Legislature is now in session, yet no voice is raised in opposition against it.