Part 199 (1/2)

From the ”Huntsville Democrat,” Dec. 8, 1838.

”The Aberdeen (Miss.) Advocate, of Sat.u.r.day last, states that on the morning of the day previous, (the 9th) a dispute arose between Mr.

Robert Smith and Mr. Alexander Eanes, both of Aberdeen, which resulted in the death of Mr. Smith, who kept a boarding house, and was an amiable man and a good citizen. In the course of the contradictory words of the disputants, the lie was given by Eanes, upon which Smith gathered up a piece of iron and threw it at Eanes, but which missed him and lodged in the walls of the house. At this Eanes drew a large dirk knife, and stabbed Smith in the abdomen, the knife penetrating the vitals, and thus causing immediate death. Smith breathed only a few seconds after the fatal thrust.

”Eanes immediately mounted his horse and rode off, but was pursued by Mr. Hanes, who arrested and took him back, when he was put under guard to await a trial before the proper authorities.”

From the ”Vicksburg Register,” Nov. 17, 1838.

”On the 2d inst. an affray occurred between one Stephen Scarbrough and A.W. Higbee of Grand Gulf, in which Scarbrough was stabbed with a knife, which occasioned his death in a few hours. Higbee has been arrested and committed for trial.”

From the ”Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat” Nov. 10, 1838.

”_Life in the Southwest_.--A friend in Louisiana writes, under date of the 31st ult., that a fight took place a few days ago in Madison parish, 60 miles below Lake Providence, between a Mr. Nevils and a Mr.

Harper, which terminated fatally. The police jury had ordered a road on the right bank of the Mississippi, and the neighboring planters were out with their forces to open it. For some offence, Nevils, the superintendent of the operations, flogged two of Harper's negroes. The next day the parties met on horseback, when Harper dismounted, and proceeded to cowskin Nevils for the chastis.e.m.e.nt inflicted on the negroes. Nevils immediately drew a pistol and shot his a.s.sailant dead on the spot. Both were gentlemen of the highest respectability.

”An affray also came off recently, as the same correspondent writes us, in Raymond, Hinds co., Miss., which for a serious one, was rather amusing. The sheriff had a process to serve on a man of the name of Bright, and, in consequence of some difficulty and intemperate language, thought proper to commence the service by the application of his cowskin to the defendant. Bright thereupon floored his adversary, and, wresting his cowhide from him, applied it to its owner to the extent of at least five hundred lashes, meanwhile threatening to shoot the first bystander who attempted to interfere. The sheriff was carried home in a state of insensibility, and his life has been despaired of. The mayor of the place, however, issued his warrant, and started three of the sheriff's deputies in pursuit of the delinquent, but the latter, after keeping them at bay till they found it impossible to arrest him, surrendered himself to the magistrate, by whom he was bound over to the next Circuit Court. From the mayor's office, his honor and the parties litigant proceeded to the tavern to take a drink by way of ending hostilities. But the civil functionary refused to sign articles of peace by touching gla.s.ses with Bright, whereupon the latter made a furious a.s.sault upon him, and then turned and flogged 'mine host' within an inch of his life because he interfered. Satisfied with his day's work, Bright retired. Can we show any such specimens of chivalry and refinement in Kentucky!”

From the ”Grand Gulf (Miss.) Advertiser,” June 27, 1837.

”DEATH BY VIOLENCE.--The moral atmosphere in our state appears to be in a deleterious and sanguinary condition. _Almost every exchange paper which reaches us contains some inhuman and revolting case of murder or death by violence. Not less than fifteen deaths by violence have occurred, to our certain knowledge, within the past three months._ Such a state of things, in a country professing to be moral and christian, is a disgrace to human nature and is well calculated, to induce those abroad unacquainted with our general habits and feelings, to regard the morals of our people in no very enviable light; and does more to injure and weaken our political inst.i.tutions than years of pecuniary distress. The frequency of such events is a burning disgrace to the morality, civilization, and refinement of feeling to which we lay claim and so often boast in comparison with the older states. And unless we set about and put an immediate and effectual termination to such revolting scenes, we shall be compelled to part with what all genuine southerners have ever regarded as their richest inheritance, the proud appellation of the '_brave, high-minded and chivalrous sons of the south_.'

”This done, we should soon discover a change for the better--peace and good order would prevail, and the ends of justice be effectually and speedily attained, and then the people of this wealthy state would be in a condition to bid defiance to the disgraceful reproaches which are now daily heaped upon them by the religious and moral of other states.”

”The present white population of Mississippi is but little more than half as great as that of Vermont, and yet more horrible crimes are perpetrated by them EVERY MONTH, than have ever been perpetrated in Vermont since it has been a state, now about half a century. Whoever doubts it, let him get data and make his estimate, and he will find that this is no random guess.”

LOUISIANA.

Louisiana became one of the United States in 1811. Its present white population is about one hundred and fifteen thousand.

The extracts which follow furnish another ill.u.s.tration of the horrors produced by pa.s.sions blown up to fury in the furnace of arbitrary power. We have just been looking over a broken file of Louisiana papers, including the last six months of 1837, and the whole of 1838, and find ourselves obliged to abandon our design of publis.h.i.+ng even an abstract of the scores and _hundreds_ of affrays, murders, a.s.sa.s.sinations, duels, lynchings, a.s.saults, &c. which took place in that state during that period. Those which have taken place in New Orleans alone, during the last eighteen months, would, in detail, fill a volume. Instead of inserting the details of the princ.i.p.al atrocities in Louisiana, as in the states already noticed, we will furnish the reader with the testimony of various editors of newspapers, and others, residents of the state, which will perhaps as truly set forth the actual state of society there, as could be done by a publication of the outrages themselves.

From the ”New Orleans Bee,” of May 23, 1838.

”_Contempt of human life._--In view of the crimes which are _daily_ committed, we are led to inquire whether it is owing to the inefficiency of our laws, or to the manner in which those laws are administered, that this _frightful deluge of human blood fowl through our streets and our places of public resort_.

”Whither will such contempt for the life of man lead us? The unhealthiness of the climate mows down annually a part of our population; the murderous steel despatches its proportion; and if crime increases as it has, the latter will soon become _the most powerful agent in destroying life_.

”We cannot but doubt the perfection of our criminal code, when we see that _almost every criminal eludes the law_, either by boldly avowing the crime, or by the tardiness with which legal prosecutions are carried on, or, lastly, by the convenient application of _bail_ in criminal cases.”

The ”New Orleans Picayune” of July 30, 1837, says:

”It is with the most painful feelings that we _daily_ hear of some _fatal_ duel. Yesterday we were told of the unhappy end of one of our most influential and highly respectable merchants, who fell yesterday morning at sunrise in a duel. As usual, the circ.u.mstances which led to the meeting were trivial.”