But to no one had these performances such constant and deep relish as the aged patriarch or beldam, as the case might be, who was elevated by their young suffragans to the post of mentor for the time being. They revelled in this employment, first, because it suited their talents; and second, because it was perfectly adapted to their emotional nature. An African, moreover, is gratified beyond expression by the knowledge that he possesses authority, no matter how brief or weak in extent, which may be exercised over his fellows; and there is not, we believe, a living party to such a bequest of social right and liberty over conscience as that to which we have referred, who was not a sufferer under the arrangement to an extent which he rarely admits to stranger confidences. But this improvement of the occasion which came to him on the part of the fiction-vender was not always done in mere wantonness. Not unfrequently the result achieved was without design, and when the contrary was true, the design was quite an intelligent one. When he acted intelligently, the object kept in view was to gain such an ascendency over the minds of his young auditory that he might reap either present benefits, or call it up to advantage in the future; and when we reflect that his audiences were largely composed of his young masters and mistresses, whose influence was great at head-quarters, and who would one day succeed to the estate, the wisdom of his conclusions must be conceded. Trained up in this school, and knowing by their later experience of men the precise extent to which the plantation darkey was controlled by the superstitious notions which he disseminated (for he was no hypocrite), the young white men of the South were at no loss in adopting countervailing forces when the Loyal League storm burst upon the country. The superstition of the negro was not a weakness, but a ruling characteristic; and at this central idea of his being the Ku-Klux movement was directed. Being thus addressed to his fears, it will be seen, by any one wishing information on the subject, that the latter was designed to whip him into obedience to what was then thought, but is now known, to be the ruling element in Southern politics. We do not assert that it was a just expedient; we cannot believe, in view of later developments in our local politics, that it was a wise one; but its transactions have passed into history, and it is with them that we are concerned. CHAPTER VII. DETAILS OF ORGANIZATION.