In what is known as Madrid Bend, a peninsular territory formed by a curve in the Mississippi River at its junction with Reelfoot Lake (which occupies the rear of the district), are situated a number of large farms, supporting hundreds of negro laborers, and here, as might have been expected, that doctrine of cause and effect, inversely applied, to which we have referred in a previous chapter, had its perfect work. On such soil the K. K. K. vine could not fail to prosper; and accordingly, at an early day, a Den was organized, which soon afterwards took upon itself the duty of regulating the affairs of the little kingdom. Loyal League meetings were broken up; carpet-baggers were requested to skip on brief notice; the enfranchised masses were not permitted to vote too early, nor too often; but, what is sincerely to be regretted by the honest historian, called upon to chronicle these events, and the law-loving public at large, matters did not stop here. The weird brotherhood went further still, in enforcing their ideas of good government, and were wont, at those periods of the "calm, still night" when the queen of its realm did not exercise her beams too freely, to visit the neighboring farms, and, at the end of the lash, administer lessons in morals, social polity, etc. The "man and brother" was not permitted to offend in too palpable breaches of morals, even on his own territory, and certain home duties were strictly enjoined upon him. These _ex cathedra_ performances proceeded in fact to great lengths, and naturally gave dissatisfaction to the controllers of the farming interests in the Bend.