Another conspicuous character in Marengo was one Burton, a carpetbagger, who established in Demopolis a weekly newspaper, _The Southern Republican_. He had incorporated in the oppressive tax laws a provision that where a deed was made to a purchaser at a tax sale, it should be made conclusive evidence, whether the sale was legal or illegal, that all requisites to a valid sale had been complied with. In order to increase the advertising, a section of land was divided into sixteen parts and each part advertised separately. Legal advertising was confined to "loyal" papers, the test of loyalty being allegiance to the Radical party. _The Southern Republican_, being the only loyal paper in all that unreconstructed region, was designated as the official organ of Marengo, Greene, Perry and Choctaw counties. The newspaper statute referred to was in these words: "That it shall be the duty of the probate judge in each county of this state to designate a newspaper in which all local advertisements, notices, or publications of any and every character required by law to be made in his county shall be published. Provided, that no newspaper shall be designated as such official organ which does not in its columns sustain and advocate the maintenance of the government of the United States and of the government of the state of Alabama, which is recognized by the Congress of the United States as the legal government of this state; and if there be no such paper published in the county, then the probate judge, whose decision upon the question shall be final, shall designate the paper published nearest the county seat of his county which does sustain said government." The "loyal" papers so designated had no circulation beyond a small free distribution among office-holders. Few of the negroes in their general illiteracy could read them, and none of them were concerned in the advertisements. The white people, to whom all of the advertisements were addressed, would not permit a copy of the publications to be sent to them. Consequently, the payment of fees was a waste of public money. The purpose of the law was to create and sustain a detestable press at the expense of the taxpayers, or seduce the existing papers. In 1870 Burton was nominee for lieutenant-governor. On account of some personally offensive publication, Mr. E. C. Meredith, of Eutaw, a Democratic leader ("Bravest of the Brave"), severely chastised him in Eutaw. Thereafter the "trooly loil" journalist made his periodical collections of fees in Greene county by proxy. About the time when frost touched with withering chill his budding political aspiration, Burton received an ominous communication, not intended for publication, but for his own guidance. It was embellished with pictures of cross-bones, skull and dagger, and inscribed with a legend which he interpreted as a sort of "move on" ordinance. And he stood not on the order of his going, but hiked.