Each band in its own canton lays its rude hands on the wheels within its reach.

They wrench or break them haphazardly, under the impulse of the moment, heedless and indifferent to consequences, even when the reaction of to-morrow crushes them in the ruin that they cause to day.

Thus do unchained Negroes, each pulling and hauling his own way, undertake to manage a ship of which they have just obtained mastery .-- In such a state of things white men are hardly worth more than black ones.

For, not only is the band, whose aim is violence, composed of those who are most destitute, most wildly enthusiastic, and most inclined to destructiveness and to license.

But also, as this band tumultuously carries out its violent action, each individual the most brutal, the most irrational, and most corrupt, descends lower than himself, even to the darkness, the madness, and the savagery of the dregs of society.