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0898

Headquarters, Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen and Abandoned Lands,
State of Louisiana, New Orleans, December 4, 1865.

CIRCULAR No. 29.
The following rules for the interpretation of Contracts between Employers and Freedmen are announced:
I. Blank forms will be distributed from this office for the purpose of securing uniformity in contracts and to indicate the matters concerning which the parties should contract. Beyond this the bargains must be entirely voluntary and unconstrained.
Laborers shall choose their employers, and it is their privilege, as well as their duty, to obtain the best terms they can for their services.
All contracts for labor should be made in triplicate, and should be approved by the Agent of this Bureau, for the Parish in which the parties reside; one copy to be retained by the employer, and the other two copies sent to this office-one to be forwarded to Washington.
Contracts made otherwise than as thus prescribed, will not be regarded as binding by the Bureau nor as meriting its interference to enforce them, unless for the protection of the laborer.
II. As far as practicable, all the members of the same family should contract conjointly for their labor, so that the number of useful hands and the number of infirm who have to be supported, may be regarded in fixing the rate of pay. The labor of minor children to be contracted for by their parents or guardian, and, in the absence of either, by the Agent of this Bureau.
III. The monthly wages must be a just compensation for the labor required to be performed.
IV. Twenty-six days, of ten hours each, in summer, and nine hours in winter, between the hours of daylight and dark, shall be considered a month.
V. Any work in excess of this will be considered as extra labor, and six hours will be considered as an equivalent for a day's work, and fractional parts of the six hours will be paid for at the same rate.
VI. Laborers working extra time will be allowed a half ration extra for each and every six hours' labor performed.
VII. In addition to the monthly wages paid to laborers, good and wholesome rations, comfortable clothing and quarters, medical attendance and just treatment, and the opportunity for instruction of children will be furnished free of charge; but the rations, clothing and quarters, fuel and all other privileges granted by the employer are part of the consideration which he pays for the services of the laborer, 

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added 0898