The newspapers found it difficult to realize that free speech and a free press were at last established. The Montgomery Mail thought these correspondents from the North ought to be kept in their own section—they did nothing but misrepresent and slander. Similar suggestions occurred every day. The temper which used to display itself in lynching gentlemen whose writings were not satisfactory, now found this safer outlet. But they all indorsed President Johnson; the despot of Tennessee, the tory who had deserted his section and attempted to grind down his people; the drunken tailor and demagogue, had suddenly become the pattern of all statesmanlike virtues. A new associate editor, making his bow in the Montgomery Ledger, found it necessary to say: “I believe him a true friend of the ill-fated South, and lifting himself above the mad waves of Black Republican fanaticisms, that are dashing and breaking themselves around his elevated position, I think that he is endeavoring to rise to the patriotic duty of leading his country, out from its distracted condition, into the calm sunshine of national repose and prosperity.” * * * * * It was a curious exemplification of popular tastes, that the newspapers surrendered their editorial columns to elaborate disquisitions on the circus. The citizens talked of it as people in the similar pretensions at the North would of the opera; and for days before its advent it seemed as if everybody was preparing for its coming. But why not? Did not the leading journal announce in double leaded type, in its leading column, that “The circus has always been a favorite amusement with the South, and the Southern taste upon the subject has ever been so fastidious and demanded so much, that it is a well known fact, that as the term goes, a circus that would go down well on the European continent and elsewhere, would be criticised and ignored in the South?” And did it not gratefully announce that “we have the pleasure to hail, as an evidence of returning peace and prosperity, the advent of a real circus, one of the old time establishments; with all its concomitants to allure, please, and give satisfaction?” It even grew eloquent on the history of the performers, thus: