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the copy of the instruments in their own possession may be lost or destroyed.

A gentleman of intelligence who called upon me yesterday, with a view to having two female infants, one of five and the other of nine, bound to him until they were eighteen years of age, positively declined when he found the indentures were not recorded. He was under the impression that contracts were entered in suitable books, which, when this Bureau was no longer required for the protection of the Freedmen, would be given in charge to the county clerk as a portion of the county records, or transferred to the archives of the War Department at Washington.

A docket, though of less importance, is nonetheless necessary.  Without some record of the proceedings of the Freedmen's Court, there is nothing to prevent discontented persons making the same complaint to the Asst. Supt., every time the interests of the Bureau may require a change in that officer. Two or three cases of this character were brought before my court at its last session, at least one of which had been already thrice decided.  The party complained of, to comply with the summons of the court, rode a distance of over twelve miles in a severe rain storm.  Circumstances of this character are well calculated to incense the citizens against the freedmen.  Yet I regard them as unavoidable unless there be some record of prior proceedings.

I think, too, that the official correspondence of the Asst. Supt. ought to be recorded.  Unless it be, he has nothing to show that he has properly discharged his duties, or to refer to for dates or other information which he may have occasion to use or allude to in 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-21 15:48:45