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Exparte evidence has been accepted, with caution, and both parties listened to when practicable.

Many complaints are made. By the majority of planters, of indolence, and impudence, on the part of the negro; scarcity of labor; increase of crime; of the pernicious influence of the Freedmens Bureau, inculcating a spirit of insubordination, and of the attempt by military authority to place in abeyance their state laws regarding negroes.

They also complain of the disposition of the Government to insist on their supporting the infirm and aged of their former slaves, and threaten resistance to such action.

The freedmen complain of the neglect and refusal of their employers to pay them - of ill treatment - of the opposition to a reunion of families separated by slavery,- of ill treatment, & the resort to old methods of punishment; the impossibility of securing protection to either person or property by appeal to civil authority,- of suffering caused by planters turning away their aged and infirm servants - to die of want and exposure, or be taken care of by the Government;- of the refusal of many planters to hire those who have relatives in the service of the United States. -