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done without manifest injustice. This is accomplished in some instances before the causes are called for trial, and in others after the evidence has been received. The results of this course has been, not only to produce general satisfaction, but to diminish the number of complaints, and the spirit of litigation.

Another source of dissatisfaction, and for which there is better cause, has arisen from the frequent violation of their contracts by freedmen. Within the past month several of these men have run away from their employers and the county, through their contracts secured to them a proper portion of the crops, and were approved by officers of the Bureau. The farmers upon which they were employed, are now suffering for want of the labor they were to supply, and their employers are not only dissatisfied, but discouraged. Some of these cases I have reported, with the request that the offenders may be arrested and returned to this sub -district, to enable me to compel them to fulfill their agreements. And unless this be done, I fear that contracts which secure an interest in the crops, will no longer be entered into by the farmers, some of whom already doubt the power or purpose of the Bureau to enforce obligations when the violators are freedmen.

In my last report, I gave it as my opinion, that the interests of the orphans of freedmen in this sub-district, would be greatly enhanced

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