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A white man named Richard Smith, while intoxicated, struck a freed boy with a stick, Smith was arrested by the civil authorities tride [[tried]] and finde [[fined]].-  A brutal assault was committed on a freedman named John Robinson, on the 26th Dec, by a man named William Milburn. - Milburn is a deaf man and is doing business in this town as a merchant.  The freedman was intoxicated.  Late in the afternoon it was reported to Milburn that John had cursed him.  Milburn immediately followed him into a small-beer & cake shop kept by a German named Eberling and accosted him thus.  "You cursed me did you," and before the freeman could make a reply or demonstration of any knide [[kind]], seized him by the head and draged [[dragged]] him to the floor, at the same time taking out a revolver, and commenced beating him over the head most shamefully, and until the man had become insensible.

Complaint-was at once lodged against Melburn who was arrested and tride [[tried]] on the following day.  One of the principal witnesses in this case was a freedman whose testimony was objected to, on the ground that they "did not recognize Negro Equality."

I insisted that in conformity with the Civil Rights Bill, the mans