There was another flutter of the public pulse in this county when, perhaps, the one thing that saved the day was the confidence of the negroes in Sheriff Jones. Court was in session when several people ran into the court room, shouting: "Sheriff! Sheriff! they are killing the negroes out here!" Sheriff Jones ran out and saw a crowd of five or six hundred negroes, some drunk, in the street, and in their midst two drunken white men. A few other whites were lined up against a fence, their hands on their pistols, not knowing what a moment would bring forth. People cried out: "Don't go into that crowd, Sheriff! You're sure to get shot!" "Here, boys!" called the Sheriff to some negroes he knew, "take me into that crowd." Two negroes made a platform of their hands, and on this the officer was carried into the mob, his bearers shouting as they went: "Lis'n to de sheriff! Hear what de sheriff say!" He called on everybody to keep the peace, had no trouble in restoring quiet, and arrested everybody he thought ought to be arrested. "But our coloured people soon became orderly and well-behaved after the carpet-baggers left us," says Sheriff Jones. In several Southern States at this period, such a termination to the last incident would have been almost impossible. Here, the officer was a representative native white; he understood the people and all elements trusted him; the interest of the community was his own. With an outsider in position, the case must have been quite different; the situation more difficult and the sequel probably tragic, even conceding to the officer sincere desire to prevent trouble, a disposition carpet-baggers did not usually betray. Riots in the South were breath of life to carpet-bag governments. July 25, 1870, Governor Smith, Republican, of Alabama, said over his signature, of a politician who had criticised him for not calling out negro militia to intimidate whites: "My candid opinion is that Sibley does not want the law executed, because that would put down crime, and crime is his life's blood. He would like very much to have a Ku Klux outrage every week, to assist him in keeping up strife between whites and blacks, that he might be more certain of the latter's votes. He would like to have a few coloured men killed weekly to furnish semblance of truth to Senator Spencer's libels against the State."