he employs to write the _Chronicle_, and thus spare us something of what
we are now obliged to stand.

Let me give you one or two instances of the course pursued by this
tyrannous newspaper.

It frightens timid citizens by its narratives of horrible outrages in
the South, especially in Georgia and Tennessee; and my wife, who has
relatives in the former place, was in chronic hysterics until it was
discovered that the "outrages" were, to use a vulgar expression, "all in
my eye." To this day she trembles at the word "loil," (I believe I spell
it correctly,) knowing, as she does, that the dreaded and mysterious
syllables, Ku-Klux, will most assuredly follow it.

Why, did we not have a great scare here a week or two ago, when it was
announced that the mysterious chalk-marks on the pavements were
significant of the presence of the awful K.K. in our midst--at our very
doors? Did we not sleep with revolvers under our pillows, and dream of
cross-bones and coffins? Did not Mayor BOWEN receive a dread missive
warning him to evacuate Washington, lest he be made a corpse of in less
than no time? Had not several colored gentlemen and white men received
similar missives? And does it repay us for our fright and alarm, when it
is discovered that the mysterious marks are cunning devices of a
gentleman engaged in the oyster trade? By no means. We have suffered our
terrors, and no amount of oysters can alleviate them. To such straits
has the _Chronicle_ reduced the citizens of Washington.

But we have other causes of complaint against this extraordinary
newspaper. Here is one: