Viewing page 62 of 228

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

As ageneral thing, the more reliable class of Freedmen, who are common laborers, work by the year, with good able farmers, who are desirous of securing their services for another year, but alone is a sufficient insentive for them to pay their employees fairly and promptly.

I do not consider the wages paid these people a sufficient remuneration for their labor. On making inquiry I find that the wages of a slave here ten (10) years ago was nearly as much as paid to the Freedmen at the present time. While now the product of the laborers labor is worth nearly twice as much to the farmer as then. This surely is not very encouraging to the colored people, as they can hope to lay by but little, however industrious they may be.

Since my last report I have seen nothing indicative of a change of feeling for the better, on the part of the white toward the colored people. Nor on the other hand have I seen any thing which would justify me in saying any changes of feeling for the worse had occurred since my last report. However if the expression of the face is an [[?]] of the emotions of the mind and feeling particularly among the majority