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Feeling of the Citizens towards the Freedmen.
Is very bitter at present. Instances of it occur almost daily, in petty acts of oppression, personal abuse, and frequent beating of the freedmen. I have known of as many as twenty cases, in which the employers would pick a quarrel with his laborers, for the purpose of dismissing them when the crop would be harvested, without any compensation for their past services, and upon the trumped up charge of insolence. A large number of the citizens of these counties, do not appear to understand or if they do, they do not recognize or acknowledge, the present condition of the Freedmen, but by their actions, and conduct towards them, betray a spirit and desire to treat them as they formly did. With such ideas and prejudices, as these people now possess, it cannot be expected, that they will treat the Freedmen with any degree of justice or fairness, for years to come.