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31.

While there is very much in the present condition of the freedmen to satisfy for the labors of the past and to encourage for the the future there is still much to desire.- Although it cannot be hoped that the customs of centuries of slavery can be abolished in three years of freedom it must be admitted that as yet but little impression has been made upon the immorality of their domestic relations.- If it was a question of morality alone it might perhaps be left to the influences of education and time to correct the evil, but it now threatens the very existence of the race.- Infanticide is practiced by them to an alarming extent.- The universal custom among the sexes of "taking up" with each other at pleasure gives a license to the men to leave their companions so soon as there is a prospect of additional mouths to feed and as the woman cannot get employment at plantation labor while nursing children a great motive to avoid increase is presented.-