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cannot buy or borrow: and complaints are daily made by freedmen who are working under contract or on shares who cannot even borrow provisions of the men whose land they are working; these men saying that the freedmen have already become so much indebted to them, that they cannot advance any more, as they are afraid that their share of the crop will not pay all they now owe them,, They had nothing at the beginning of the year to live on, and with their large families they have eaten up faster than they earned; and another Christmas will find them in the same destitute and dependent condition, without money, and without corn and meat, & with no other course to pursue but go and make the best contract they can for meat and bread for the next year; and the best contract, made under such circumstances, will, as any thinking man must know, be a very poor one, and will make the last condition of that freedman worse than the first,, These things exist in the face of the fact that the wheat crop is gathered and is the best they have had in 10 years. The corn and tobacco, however, are not as promising,,

As intellectual and spiritual progress depends upon material prosperity, it follows that these people take but little interest in these subjects,,

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-26 09:47:55