with the recruiting bounties, have been brought to bear upon the freedmen of that Department, and, if the truth be told, under the same auspices from which this order proceeds. Be this as it may, it seems a pity that these poor people, who are just learning what competition means, and will walk five miles farther to a shop where dry goods are retailed a little cheaper, should be checked and hampered in their little commerce by an attempt to abolish all the laws of political economy in their favor. If the freedmen were a race like the Indians, wasting away by unseen laws through the mere contact of the white man, the case would be very different. Or if they were a timid and dependent race, needing to be thrust roughly from the nest, like young birds, and made self-dependent, the difference would be greater still. But it is not so. The negro race fits into the white race, and thrives by its side; and the farther South, the greater the thriving. The emancipated slave is also self-relying, and, if fair play be once given, can hold his own against his former master, whether in trade or in war. He is improvident while in slavery, as is the Irishman in Ireland, because he has no opportunity to be anything else. Shift the position, and the man changes with it,--becoming, whether Irishman or negro, a shrewd economist, and rather formidable at a bargain. Almost every freedman is cheated by a white man once after his emancipation, and many twice; but when it comes to the third bargain, it is observed that mere Anglo-Saxon blood is not sufficient to secure a victory.