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manhood and womanhood of a very pleasing and elegant type, and there are among the colored those whose lives are above reproach, but the standard of morality is, on the average, low. Gambling and drinking are, so far as my observation has extended, nees which public opinion deals tenderly with, and are exacting a most disastrous influence upon the material interests of the country. In such a state of things there is always a straining after an artificial or external appearance of correctness in which there is evident, to the observer, much "Straining at gnats and swallowing of camels"

The cause of temperance has made but little progress in the past quarter; it is not popular with freedmen.  Their intemperance is a slowly consuming curse that devours the little gains of many laborers, and keeps thousands of freedmen on the edge of bitter want, and thus on the verge of crime. But I know of no case when a freedmen has rushed madly into a career of drunkenness and shocked the public sense by his outrageous conduct; they are conservative drinkers - "horrid examples" are scarce.