I do not wish to be understood as saying that the Southerner re-won control of local government by only such methods as described; I emphasize the truth that, at times, he did use them and had to use them, because herein was his deep moral wound. He employed better methods as he could; for instance, when every white man would bind himself to persuade one negro to vote with him, to bring this negro to the polls, and protect him from Radical punishment. Also, he availed himself of weak spots in the enemy's armour. Thus in Hancock County, Georgia, in 1870, Judge Linton Stephens challenged voters who had not paid poll-tax, and, when election managers would not heed, had them arrested and confined, while their places were supplied and the election proceeded. The State Constitution, framed by the Radicals themselves, called for this poll-tax--a dollar a head--and its application to "educational purposes." The extravagant Radical regime, falling short of bribing money, remitted the poll-tax in lieu thereof. Judge Stephens caught them. Governor Bullock disapproved his action; United States Marshal Seaford haled him before United States Commissioner Swayze. The Federal Grand Jury ignored the charge against him, and that was the end of it. The Judge had, however, been put to expense, trouble, and loss of time. THE WHITE CHILD CHAPTER XXVI THE WHITE CHILD Upon the Southern white child of due age for schooling the effects of war fell with cruel force. The ante-bellum planter kept a tutor or governess or both for his children; his neighbours' children sometimes attended the school which he maintained for his own. Thus, were sons and daughters prepared for academy and college, university, finishing school. Private schools were broken up quite generally by the war. It became quite the custom for the mother or an elder sister to fill the position of instructor in families on big plantations. Such schooling as this was none too plentiful in rural Dixie just after the war. Sisters of age and capacity to teach did not stay in one family forever. Sometimes they got married; though many a beautiful and brilliant girl sacrificed her future for little brothers and sisters dependent upon her for mental food. The great mass of Southern women had, however, to drop books for broomsticks; to turn from pianos and guitars and make music with kettles and pans. Children had to help. With labour entirely disorganised, in the direst poverty and the grasp of such political convulsions as no people before them had ever endured, the hour was strenuous beyond description, and it is no wonder if the claims of children to education were often overlooked, or, in cruel necessity, set aside.