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7

is considerable hesitancy in making contracts until about or after Christmas: but this arises from the old custom of hiring out the slaves at the beginning of a new year.

The absence from their families of several thousand Freedmen who are soldiers in our army is a large draft upon the industrial element of the border Southern States  If the colored troops could be spared from the service within the next two months it would do much for the removal from cities and towns to plantations of the wives and children of soldiers, who are now crowded into small tenements in close proximity to garrisons. There are many of this class at Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga  If the husband and father could be relieved from the musket, that they might take the plough handles and hoes it would