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exorbitant rents to be paid in money.  The difficulties thus encountered in the way of their renting land and the advice given them by their friends to hire themselves out, as they could do no better, induced many of the Freedmen to abandon their fallacious impression of forced Servitude, and hire their labor to the best employer, and at the best prices to be obtained.  For the present year Farm laborers, when hired by the year, - receive from one hundred to one hundred and twenty five dollars, together with the old Slave ration, for their years Service.

Where they are hired by the month they receive from eight to ten dollars, with rations, per month.  A majority of the Freedmen hire by the month; as the extended bay and Sea Side Coasts of this Peninsula afford them an opportunity to earn during the fall and Spring months at oystering; a much larger sum per month than they could procue at any other labor.  Many others of them refuse to hire either by the year or month for the reason that they dislike Study employment of any kind.  Their past education having taught them to have no care for the future, they only ask from the present a few of the necessaries of life that