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seven miles on horse back thereby desiring to avoid paying a free boy what they had agreed to pay him as a slave. Now these parties rode seven miles to reach my office, used two horses and had a ride of seven miles to get home again. Now I have given you the facts of the case at such length to show you what trouble many of the former slaveholders will take to avoid paying the colored people that which is justly due them. You may judge how much trouble these parties would have taken to avoid pay a freedman did they owe him more than seven bushels of corn - or its value. 

I am glad to be able to state that there is a vast improvement in the conduct of the cadets and students at this place since I wrote my last monthly report. 

During the early part of the past month I was present at a hearing before a Magistrate in which three of the cadets and a freedman was the parties interested. The freedman charged the cadets with "assault and battery" but as he had given the cadets as good as they sent the parties were bound over to keep the peace only. This being the first case of the kind ever heard in Lexington the only place large enough to accommodate all who wished to be present was the court house which was accordingly opened by special request for the occasion. 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-28 12:21:29