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shown by the freedmen to wait for the "new laws before contracting, believing that they would secure to them better compensation for their work. This, where low monthly wages are offering. It is believed that the planters generally, are making arrangements to farm the present year, but not on so large a scale as last year. Very few are offering wages. In the contracts that have been made of which I have knowledge, the price varies, for first class hands, from $3. to $5. per month. A larger number give the labor the one fourth of the crop. A still greater number give the labor the one third of the crop, the laborers supplying their own rations. Some give to the labor the one half of the crop, dividing the necessary expenses of cultivation between it and the capital.

Quite a number of applications have been made for aid, by and in behalf of destitute persons, both black and white. The "Selma Relief Association" organized last November "to provide ways and means for the relief of the immediate necessities of the deserving poor in Selma" are doing much to prevent suffering, by supplying food and articles of clothing. Their charity has been confined, thus far, to white destitutes   Indigent sick foced persons without homes applying for medical attention, have been referred to the civil authorities, when it was found that no provisions had been made for the care of this class of persons, by them. Extreme cases of this character have been admitted to the Freedmen's Hospital, in this city, upon orders from this office. 

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