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Too general reliance on the Tobacco crop, (the valuable part of which, for 1867, is now going into market) is one great cause of the pinching distress too common among both white and colored, withdrawing, as it does, so much attention from the growth of the necessaries of life which are available for consumption, in one fourth of the time necessary to secure returns from Tobacco-. The freedmen discouraged by the slow realization of wages based on share of crop, previous, bad faith of some employers, and perhaps still more inclined by a mistaken desire to be fully free, prefer irregular labor and settling on poor or new land, building houses which they may not long occupy. Until the relations between the two classes are established on a basis of a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, the condition of affairs must necessarily grow worse as the means of the farmer are becoming more and more exhausted each successive season-. Politically the antagonism between the races is intense, and agitation may easily be precipitated into disorder-. Under present checks, justice between white and colored is administered with impartiality, but this would be far from the case if these checks were withdrawn. In Prince Edward Co, the Register of Marriages &c, is incomplete-, the sheets in this Office show, (767) Seven Hundred and Sixty Seven Males and (767) Seven Hundred and sixty seven Females, (1405) Fourteen Hundred and five Children recognized and (144) One Hundred and forty four Orphan Children. It would be exceedingly difficult to complete the return without entire new Registration. 

The county authorities are prepared to receive and support paupers, but none avail themselves of the county provision unless under extremest destitution. The supply of labor, although decreasing, is far in excess of the capital needed to employ it profitably, and to add to the distress the Tobacco factories at Farmville have suspended operations-.  

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-12-09 22:02:57