"6668. If any person or persons, masked or in disguise, shall prowl, or travel, or ride, or walk through the country or towns of this State, to the disturbance of the peace, or to the alarming of the citizens of any portion of this State, on conviction thereof (they) shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, and imprisoned in the county jail of the county wherein convicted, at the discretion of the jury trying the case. "6669. If any person or persons, disguised or in mask, by day or by night, shall enter upon the premises of another, or demand entrance or admission into the house or inclosure of any citizen of this State, it shall be considered _prima facie_ that his or her intention is to commit a felony, and such demand shall be deemed an assault with an intent to commit a felony, and the person or persons so offending, shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than ten years nor more than twenty years. "6670. If any person or persons, so prowling, traveling, riding, or walking through the towns or country of this State, masked or in disguise, shall or may assault another with a deadly weapon, he or they shall be deemed guilty of an assault with intent to commit murder in the first degree, and, on conviction thereof, shall suffer death by hanging; provided that the jury trying the case may substitute imprisonment in the penitentiary for a period of not less than ten years nor more than twenty-one years." In connection with this Tennessee statute, it is interesting to note that the leading case, reported in the State, based on the act fully sustained the statute. In the case of Walpole against the State, 9 Baxter 369, delivered in 1878 by a Supreme Court composed entirely of Democrats, with several Confederate soldiers the court held: "It is apparent that the object of this statute was to repress a great evil which arose in this country after the war, and which grew to be an offense of frequent occurrence, that of evil-minded and mischievous persons disguising themselves to terrify or to wrong those who happened to be the objects of their wrath or resentment. This was a kind of mob law, enforced sometimes by a multitude of vagabonds, who grew to be a great terror to the people and placed human life and property at the mercy of bad men, whose crimes could scarcely ever be punished because of the disguises under which they were perpetrated." In closing its opinion the court said: "The penalties of a violation of this law are severe, but they have proved themselves wholesome in the partial suppression already of one of the greatest of the disturbing elements of social order in this State. Affirm the judgment."