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under ordinary circumstances, but with the present month the issue will cease entirely
it is apparent that the condition of both Refugees and Freedmen throughout the District has steadily improved but very few complaints of idleness or vagrancy are made in the harts of the country both in Missouri and Arkansas, where the people both white and black are most intelligent, all parties are fast learning their duties and obligations under the new order of things and good order industry and prosperity prevail; a marked improvement is noticeable in Arkansas, in portions of that state contiguous to the lines of communication, but in more remote portions, the condition and temper of the people is still very unsatisfactory
Capt Carhart, Superintendent at Camden Ark, reports the planters averse to working their plantations, another year with free labor, unless they can have the privilege of flogging the laborers; again, he says there is a strong combination among the late Rebels in the Union County to protect each other in cruel treatment of their former slaves if they find it necessary; there is a general disposition and determination in these benighted regions to make the experiment of free labor a failure; in their ignorance they confidently