Viewing page 85 of 239

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

many of whom have been abandoned by former husbands, as they come to understand its provisions, are delighted with the protection it affords them and their children. The magistrates of the county are assisting me in the record of their marriages.
Giving the civil courts jurisdiction in criminal cases, will, in my opinion, be productive of much good in this community.  A large portion of the freedmen of the county are oystermen, and will be out of employment and their ordinary occupation at the close of this month, and unless restrained by a fear of the law, many of them will resort to theft for a support during the summer. There is labor enough to be obtained, but they are disinclined to work on farms for five or ten dollars a month, when on the oyster rocks they are accustomed to earn as many dollars in a day.
I would respectfully invite attention to the portions of any previous reports in reference to the indenturing of orphan minors with the remark that the observations of nearly