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One was shot down, the man who did the deed was tried, but either acquitted or the case 'noll prossed' the defence being that the negro had used threatening words; & that man is to-day apparently as well received among the gentlemen of this county as though no stain of murder rested on him. A negro, who had been tried & fined fifty dollars for assault, (the charge is admitted by lawyers who heard the trial to have been false), was ordered by the Judge to remain in jail thirty days & then be let free on taking the oath of insolvency according to law; at the end of thirty six days, not being able to induce any one, of all these gentlemen who now claim to be the negroes' best friends, to bring him before the judge to take the oath & being in great affliction in the prison where he had remained more than a year, the poor man agreed to work a year for the man who would get him out, he has now six months longer to serve, & has not seen his family since his arrest eighteen month ago & knows not where they are; I call that paying a pretty big fee for half an hour's work & a little knowledge of law; this is not the negro's story but the facts as obtained from the court records & lawyers here who witnessed the whole thing. Such men are called honorable high-minded men & no public opinion exists to 

Transcription Notes:
noll prossed for nolle prosequi, abandonment of a legal action