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An order has been in force a long time to aid the planter in keeping up their slave policy, so that many to this day are kept as slaves, and their lives threatened if they go off or ask for pay - 
Very many are driven off who have become disabled or nearly worn out, and all are kept between the upper & the nether mill stone by the enforcement of that barbarous order which tolerates the driving off negroes indiscriminately if they will not work for a little or nothing, and if they came to the city or county Head Quarters to seek work or bread without a certificate from their old master or employer, or the Provost Marshal who they have never seen or known of, they are assisted, whether they are able to find work & take care of themselves or not, and forced into the street gang & made slaves for a time and often worked without food. Then let go for a day or two, and then liable to be taken again in the same way. Making no distinction but color, and yielding to no excuses, as you will see by the enclosed article from the Daily Virginian one of the city papers. 
When I heard of a few of such cases, I could not fully credit them, but went immediately to the Provost Marshal to get posted. He admitted the fact, as a kind of necessary protection to the Planters, and a very convenient way to get somebody to clean the streets for the whites. When I gave him to understand that   

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-31 18:10:29