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this system, and of supporting the aged, infirm and helpless." The circular, with a minuteness of detail which is remarkable, also enters into the subject of dietetics, and prescribes that corn meal, pork and bacon "shall be" the food of the freedmen, and that the employer, whenever the agent of the Bureau shall require it, shall give security that the particular food thus required by the contract shall be furnished. We suppose that an employer who, actuated by a spirit of generosity or kindness to his former slave, should venture to offer a more generous diet, or vary it for the benefit of the health of the laborer, would be visited with the serious displeasure of the Bureau, which has promulgated the doctrine that the diet prescribed so imperatively "shall be" the food of the freedman, whether it is practicable to procure it or not.
The circular further requires that the quarters of the laborer and his family "must contain accommodations for cooking; and, in addition, one-half acre of land contiguous to the houses, will be set apart for each family for garden purposes." Though an economical administration of the affairs of a plantation would necessitate a very different arrangement, the employer is required to set up a separate culinary department for each family, and also to assign to each half an acre of ground for gardening purposes: it being necessary that the land in question shall be contiguous to the respective houses.
Under the supposition that a planter employed a hundred families-and some of the plantations will require more to cultivate them properly-we would have the novel spectacle of fifty acres of gardens, and a hundred culinary establishments in full blast to cook the ration of pork and cornmeal alloted to the freedmen. When the diet is so imperiously restricted to these articles, it is not perceived why so extraordinarily large a portion of the plantation, "contiguous to the houses," too, should be set apart for gardening purposes. The condition of "contiguity" cannot well be satisfied, either, unless the planters should abandon the labors of the field and set about to erect a scattered village for the accommodation of the freedmen.
The circular is filled with impracticable requirements. An attempt to carry out the conditions which it seeks to impose will force the planter to desist from every effort to employ the freedman, and will drive the latter into idleness and vagabondage.
Even if this new plan were not utterly chimerical, we have no assurance that the circular just issued might not be succeeded soon by another still more hurtful to the interests of all parties. Many contracts have been entered into under the circular, promulgated by Gen. Fullerton, and subsequently continued in force by Gen. Baird. We understand that in this last circular he has repudiated the contracts which he authorized in the one first named, for he states that "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."
If the action of the Bureau may be repudiated by itself in one case, it is not unreasonable to suppose that it may be repudiated in another, and it is very possible that the planter, if he commences working under the present circular, may find that in a short time new and ruinous conditions may be imposed upon him by subsequent orders.
The only escape from the uncertainties attending the administration of freedmen's affairs, is to hold out such inducements as will cause a large immigration of white people to our State. They will add to our strength, and will develop the resources of the country in their own way. And though the freedman, who is the especial care of the Bureau, may eventually perish under the vicious system which his self-styled friends are endeavoring to force upon the State, it will not be the fault of the Southern people, who to-day entertain for the negro a more kindly feeling than is entertained for him by the people of the North, with all their boasted philanthropy.