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9

has been punished to the fullest extent of the law - I refer to the freedman who was hung at Houston.

So far as my information goes I do not think there are as many homocides of freed people in that portion of the state I visited as farther north and in the middle and western portion of the state. Neither do they enjoy the same freedom of action and opinion that is exercised in the middle and western portion of the state where they have dared, by the protection thrown around them by the presence of agents and troops, to exercise the rights conferred upon them as free men by the laws of Congress.

In consequence of this condition of affairs a certain kind of quiet exists lacking it is true but little in all the essentials of slavery, but having the one redeeming quality I have