er hurry, or there'll be no negroes to disfranchise! If they don't
stop till they get the color they desire, and the stuff works according
to contract, they'll all be white. Ah! what have we here? This looks as
though it might be serious." Opening the sheet the general read aloud
an editorial article, to which Carteret listened intently, his
indignation increasing in strength from the first word to the last,
while McBane's face grew darkly purple with anger.

The article was a frank and somewhat bold discussion of lynching and its
causes. It denied that most lynchings were for the offense most
generally charged as their justification, and declared that, even of
those seemingly traced to this cause, many were not for crimes at all,
but for voluntary acts which might naturally be expected to follow from
the miscegenation laws by which it was sought, in all the Southern
States, to destroy liberty of contract, and, for the purpose of
maintaining a fanciful purity of race, to make crimes of marriages to
which neither nature nor religion nor the laws of other states
interposed any insurmountable barrier. Such an article in a Northern
newspaper would have attracted no special attention, and might merely
have furnished food to an occasional reader for serious thought upon a
subject not exactly agreeable; but coming from a colored man, in a
Southern city, it was an indictment of the laws and social system of the
South that could not fail of creating a profound sensation.

"Infamous--infamous!" exclaimed Carteret, his voice trembling with
emotion. "The paper should be suppressed immediately."

"The impudent nigger ought to be horsewhipped and run out of town,"
growled McBane.

"Gentlemen," said the general soothingly, after the first burst of
indignation had subsided, "I believe we can find a more effective use
for this article, which, by the way, will not bear too close
analysis,--there's some truth in it, at least there's an argument."
"That is not the point," interrupted Carteret.

"No," interjected McBane with an oath, "that ain't at all the point.
Truth or not, no damn nigger has any right to say it."

"This article," said Carteret, "violates an unwritten law of the South.
If we are to tolerate this race of weaklings among us, until they are
eliminated by the stress of competition, it must be upon terms which we
lay down. One of our conditions is violated by this article, in which
our wisdom is assailed, and our women