"The people of the South may be divided into two classes. There is the industrious class, laboring earnestly to build up what has been broken down, striving to restore prosperity to the country, and interested mainly in the great question of providing food and clothing for themselves and families. These form the great majority of the people. Then there is another class, an utterly irresponsible class, composed mainly of young men who were the "bucks" of Southern society before the war, and chiefly spent their time in lounging round the courtrooms and bars, in chicken fighting and gambling. These have been greatly broken up by the war; many of them have been killed; but those who remain are still disturbing elements in the community, and are doing much mischief. It is this class of men, and a number of the poor whites, who have formed gangs for horse-stealing. It is they who in some instances have made attacks on officers of the Freedmen's Bureau, and have ill-treated the freedmen. It is they who afford the main pretext for saying that there is among the people of the South a feeling of hostility toward the United States Government. But they are not the representatives of the Southern people. They form but an insignificant minority in the community, and even they are actuated not so much by a feeling of opposition to the Government as by a reluctance to earn their own livelihood by honest labor and individual exertion."