Are “the good people” of the entire North to be held up as utterly lawless, making a jest of “such peccadillos as murder,” because of the late doings at Wilmington, Del., or at Springfield, O.?
Has Indiana had no lynchings; has Colorado had no carnival of crime?
James Tillman, of South Carolina, “shot down in the street” a mortal political foe who had, beyond all question, given him great provocation.
I do not say that James Tillman was justified in his act—I merely say that he had provocation, great provocation.
He was acquitted, but he was not sent to Congress.
He left the court-room a broken, chastened man; and is now leading a life of sobriety, industry and rectitude.
Not many years ago, on a Sunday morning, a saloon-keeper and his son, in the city of Boston, Mass., beat down a drunken man who had broken a window-pane of said saloon—beat him down on the streets, and kicked him to death after he was down.
Apparently the man’s sole offense was that he had broken a pane of glass and refused to pay for it.
The saloon was open in violation of law.