A LETTER TAKEN FROM THE “TRUE DEMOCRAT.”
The following was published in the True Democrat, from the pen of one of the ablest Judges in the eastern part of Mississippi, shortly after the liberation of the defendant:
Mr. Editor—We heartily sympathize with J. R. S. Pitts, Sheriff of Perry county, and are deeply mortified at the yielding course of our Governor in rendering him up a prisoner in obedience to a requisition from the State of Alabama. We look on this whole affair as being preposterous in the extreme. To have the Sheriff of one of our counties forced to vacate his office, temporarily, and to be taken like a common felon, and carried to another State, and there be tried as a malefactor, and for what? Why, for simply writing and publishing the confessions of a notorious “land pirate,” one of a gang of banditti that has till recently been a terror to the whole country for a great many years. Such a course betrays a feebleness of nerve on the part of his Excellency perfectly unpardonable in the Executive.
The “Wages and Copeland Clan” have become as notorious in portions of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, as was the pirate and robber, John A. Murrell, and his clan. It is well for Mr. Pitts that his friends volunteered to guard him and protect him until he reached the city of Mobile in safety.
Talk about rendering him up on a requisition that claimed him as a “fugitive from justice,” when the offence, if any, was committed in this State, when he was a citizen of Perry county, and Sheriff of the county at the time, and quietly at home discharging the duties of his office. “Oh! shame, where is thy blush?”
But we rejoice to learn that his prosecutors have failed to hurt him. They may have forced him to draw heavily on his purse to fee lawyers, pay tavern expenses, etc., but they have not hurt his character. He stands to-day proudly vindicated as a bold and efficient officer before an impartial and unprejudiced public. Mr. Pitts is too well known in Mississippi for the tongue of slander or the hand of the bitter persecutor to injure him seriously. He is a native of Georgia—“to the manner born.” He was reared and principally educated in Mississippi. And right in the county where he was principally raised, he was selected by a large majority of the citizens of the county to serve them and the State in the high and responsible office of Sheriff of the county; and that too when he had barely reached his majority of years. The intelligent citizens of Perry county elected him by their spontaneous suffrage solely on account of his great moral worth and his superior business qualifications.
The most amusing circumstance in the whole affair is, the report industriously circulated that Mr. Pitts did not write the book—that he is not scholar enough to write such a book. The report refutes itself by its own palpable absurdity. Everybody who is acquainted with Mr. Pitts knows that he is a fair English scholar, and a very good writer. The book is a valuable book; and it has done, and will do more to rid the country of the clan it exposes than even the killing and hanging has done.
Mr. Pitts may congratulate himself as having done more with his pen as an author than he did with the rope and gallows as Sheriff. Much more might be said in vindication of this persecuted gentleman, but this is deemed sufficient. Mr. Pitts is a young man, and will, if he lives many years, work out a character in high social position, and official position, too, if he seeks it. From his beginning, I predict for him a brilliant career in the future.
Very respectfully,
Vindex.