The ingenuity of the Alabama legislators in contriving schemes to re-enslave the negroes was not exhausted by the odious and comprehensive statutes already cited. They passed an Act to incorporate the city of Mobile, substituting a new charter for the old one. The city had suffered much from the suspension and decay of trade during the war, and it was in great need of labor to make repairs to streets, culverts, sewers, wharves, and all other public property. By the new charter, the mayor, aldermen, and common council were empowered "to cause all vagrants," . . . "all such as have no visible means of support," . . . "all who can show no reasonable cause of employment or business in the city," . . . "all who have no fixed residence or cannot give a good account of themselves," . . . "or are loitering in or about tippling-houses," "to give security for their good behavior for a reasonable time and to indemnify the city against any charge for their support, and in case of their inability or refusal to give such security, to cause them to be confined to labor for a limited time, not exceeding six calendar months, which said labor shall be designated by the said mayor, aldermen, and common council, for the benefit of said city." It will be observed even by the least intelligent that the charge made in this city ordinance was, in substance, the poverty of the classes quoted--a poverty which was of course the inevitable result of slavery. To make the punishment for no crime effective, the city government was empowered "to appoint a person or persons to take those sentenced to labor from their place of confinement to the place appointed for their working, and to watch them while at labor and return them before sundown to their place of confinement; and, if they shall be found afterwards offending, such security may again be required, and for want thereof the like proceeding may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." The plain meaning of all this was, that these helpless and ignorant men, having been robbed all their lives of the fruit of their labor by slavery, and being necessarily and in consequence poor, must be punished for it by being robbed again of all they had honestly earned. If they stubbornly continued in their poverty, the like proceeding (of depriving them of the fruits of their labor) "may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." It would, of course, be found "necessary" just as long as the city of Mobile was in need of their labor without paying for it.