The Stevens Mystery, of Yanceyville, N. C., has never been unravelled; the $5,000 reward which President Grant offered for answer to the question, "Who killed Stevens?" was never won, though skilled detectives tried for it. Stevens was a scalawag. He achieved his sobriquet, "Chicken Stevens," through being chased out of his native county for stealing chickens. One of his adherents, when quite drunk, said before an audience of two thousand negroes: "Stevens stole chickens; that elected him to the Legislature; if he steals turkeys, it will elect him to Congress." The pleasantry was cheered to the echo. Stevens was charged with instigating riots and barn-burnings. He received a mystic warning to leave the country. He did not go. One day, while court was in full session, he was seen in the Court Room, in conversation with several people; was seen to leave in amicable company with a citizen who parted with him and went out by the street door, while Stevens entered a county office where clerks were busy; several persons recalled seeing and speaking to him here, but nobody could remember seeing him alive afterwards. Yet hall and offices were thronged with his adherents. He was soon missed by the negroes who set a guard around the building. Next day he was found in the Grand Jury Room, sitting bolt upright, dead, strangled or with his throat cut, I forget which. This room opened on the hall through which a stream of people, white and black, had been passing all day; a negro cabin commanded a view of the window; a negro janitor held the key. Kirke's cut-throats, sent down by Governor Holden, arrested prominent citizens and carried them to Raleigh. No evidence for conviction could ever be found, and they were liberated. Stevens' death has been charged to Ku Klux; also, to his confederates, who, it is said, received instructions from headquarters to "kill off Stevens," meaning politically, which they construed literally. I have been told that one of the slayers is living and that at his death, a true statement will be published showing who killed Stevens and how. These stories are sufficient to show the good and the evil of Ku Klux; there is public peril in any secret order which attempts to administer justice. Uniform and methods employed to justifiable or excusable ends by one set of people were employed to ends utterly indefensible by another. The Radicals were quick to profit by Ku Klux methods; and much was done under the name and guise that the Klan did not do. Yet, in its own ranks were men reckless, heedless, and wicked, avengers of personal grudges.