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1114

is now but one school house established in this division for the education of colored children & that in Charles City County, although in this respect the whites are but little better off. There should be at least three other schools for freedmen in the two counties. The wages paid to freedmen are small. Ten (10) dollars per month or fifty (.50) cents pr day is the average price paid. The families of the married freedmen are generally large, and as a consequence it is oftentimes difficult to maintain their families comfortably. I regret to say that there is, as I believe a great deal of money spent both by the whites & blacks for intoxicating liquor  In this section of the state cutting pine cord wood is quite an extensive business in which large numbers of freedmen are employed; the freedmen draws his rations from his employer which is deducted from his wages. Whiskey oftentimes absorbs a large portion of his hire instead of money which should go toward the support of his family & the payment of his taxes & debts. 

Politics is now engrossing the attention of the freedman and the coming campaign is likely to be hotly contested in this division The freedmen, from what I can learn have no idea that suffrage 
      

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