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with them and the officers of the Bureau stationed here, learn their circumstances & so judge of this matter for yourself.

The facts in the case are just these. The freedmen from the Country have crowded into the city to such an extent as to make their house rents very high, & the rate of their Wages very low. For one miserable little room they are obliged to pay from ten to fifteen dollars pr. month: and the highest a common laborer gets is a dollar a day, "& find himself". And then the cost of living is at least one fourth higher in Eufaula than in Montgomery.

You can judge something from this how little money most of these people have left after supplying their bare animal Wants. — I sent on to Cincinnati for a supply of School books & it was with the utmost difficulty and after a good deal of trouble that I succeeded in getting the mere cost of them.