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0873

I encourage written contracts by the year as much as possible because my experience shows men so employed prove best off at the end of the year, provided they refuse to open store accounts, with their employers. The great drawback to Freedmen not employed by the year, the outrageous rent, demanded for tenements in which to live. As a class freedmen here are not making much progress in material property- the long hard winter eats up the simple earnings of the harvest season and the sick & widowed and deserted women, experience much suffering. The distribution of clothing at the office has done much good, enabling many to go out to labor who otherwise from want of clothing would have been prevented. The corporation and county officers relieve such cases of distress as have been presented, and no complaint can now be made, except perhaps about the regulations, in some county districts, which disallow outdoor relief and present to the poor only the option of poor-house or nothing. This month there has been less than usual number of complaints by freedmen of ill usage at the hands of white citizens-
Little is now said on political questions, it appears 

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-23 11:32:06 added NARA removed bracket notation for underlining--this is no longer done, as per TC instructions "corporation" "said"