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inability. The constitution of the state provides that the courts shall be open to every man, but the appellate courts are really open to such only as can give security for costs. The practical consequence is that a large majority of the freed men is excluded from the appellate courts; and an advance decision in the court of original jurisdiction is as conclusive against them as though it had been rendered by the Supreme Court of Appeals. 

And I think a law giving farm laborers, especially those who work by the year under contract, a lien on the crops they help to cultivate similar to a mechanic's lien on the structure he erects, would be found of great practical benefit to the freedmen. 

I have the honor to be,
Very respectfully,
Your obt. servt.,
Wm Linn Tidball, 
Capt. & Asst. Supt., 
B.R.F. & A.L. 

Through
Bvt. Maj. W. R. Morse,
Supt. 4th Dist.,
Gordonsville, Va.