The condition of the South at present seems to be
rather worse than that which Mr. Hepworth Dixon describes as existing in the Far West. There the re'gime is anarchy tempered by the revolver and by desperadoes of order like Mr. Wilson, Sheriff of Denver, who is always committing murders on thieves and brigands; but here anarchy is not tempered at all. "Bands of Regulators," reports the correspondent of the Daily News—perhaps the fairest man ever employed by the Press—wander about, killing and roasting negroes ad libitum, with the secret approbation of the authorities. These incessant outrages seem, however, to be rousing the coloured race to resistance, for " M.P.," an Englishman, writes a long letter to the Times complaining of their behaviour, the gist of which is that if anybody strikes them they strike back, that they " strike " when they consider themselves oppressed, and that, as we under- stand one story, they will not allow white men to interfere with their women. If they go on in that shocking way for any time, they will have to be treated as we treat the Sikhs, for exactly the same reasons—that is, as if they were white men entitled to go their own way, even if it happens occasionally to be a silly one.
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