The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1836-1851, 1841-07-28

couhuy: A8!cat numoer OF noises VIZ oieu i''''
you see large herds Of them feeding in the open
praries. and at this season ofthe year every full
grown mare has colt running by her side. Most
of the thefs committed carly in the spring, when
the grass begins to shoot, and the horses are turned
out on the prairie, and the thieves having had little
Or no employment during the winter, are needy-or
else in the autumn, when the animals are kept near
the dwellings of their owners to be fed with Indian
corn and are in excellent order. The thieves select
the best from the drove, and they arc passed from
one station to another till they arrive at some DIS
tunt market where they are sold. 1t is said that
they have their regular line Of communication from
Wisconsin to St, Louis and from the Wabash to the
Mississippi. In Ogie County they seem to have
been boder than elsewhere and fhore successful,
notwithstanding the notoriety Of their crimes. in
avoiding punishment. The impossibility of punish.
ing them by the process Of law, the burning Of the
Court House at Oregon city last April, and the
threats of deadly vengeance thrown out by them
against such as should attempt 70 bring them to
Justice, led to the formation oa company Of Citizens
REGULATORS, they call themselves who resolved to
take the law nt6iher own hands and drive the fol.
ons ffom the neighborhood. This not tho fst in.
stance of the kind which has hsppened in Illinois.
Sope twenty yearssince the southern counties con.
tanned gang of horse.thieves, SO nnicrous and well
organized as to defy punishment BY legal means,
and they were expelled BY the same method which is
now adopted in Ogle county:
Ilave Just learned, since wrote the last SEN
- Ind ~
only the county of Ogle, butthose of De Kalb and
Wnnebago, where the depredations of the horse.
thieves and the perfect impunity with which they
manage to exercise their calling, have exhausted
the patience of the inhabitants. In those counties,
as we'll as in 0ge, their patrons live at some of The
finest groves, whore they own large farms. Ten or
twenty stolen horses will be brought to one of these
places of night, and before sunrise the despera-
does employed to take them arc again mounted and
on their way to some other station. In breaking up
these haunts, the regulators, understand, have
proceeded with somo of the formalitles commonly
used in administering justice. The accused party
has been allowed to make his defence and witnesses
have been examined, both for and against him.
These proceedings, however, have lately suffered
most tragical interruption. Not long after Bridges
house was pulled down, two men, mounted and
carrying rifles, called at the house of Mr.. Campbell
living at Whiterock Grove, in ogle county who
belonged to the company of regulators, and who had
acted as the messenger to convey to Bridge the or
der to leave the county. Meeting Mrs. Campbell
without the house, they told her that they wished
to speak to her husband. Campbell made his appear
ance at the door and Immediately both the men fred
He fell mortay wounded and lived but few minutes
"You have killed my husband" said Mrs. Campbell
to one Of the murderers whose name was Driscoll.
Upon this they rode off at full speed.
As soon as the event was known the whole coun.
try was reused, and every man who was not an as
sociate of the horse.thieves shou6ered his rifle to
90 in pursuit ofthe nunderefs. They appreheaded
the father of DriscolI, man nearly seventy years
of age and one of his sons William Dliscoi, thefor
mer repulted horse.thief, and The latter, q man
who had hitherto borne toerable fair character,
and subjected them to separate examination. The
father was wary in his answers, and put on the ap
pearance of perfect innocence, but William Driscoll
was greatly agitated, and confessed that he, with
his father and Others, had planed the murder of
Campbell, and that David Driscol, his brother, to-
gether with another associate, employed to exc
cnte it. The father and son were then sentenced to
death; they were bound and made to kneel; about
fifty men took aim at each, and in three hours from
the time they were taken they were dead men. A
hole was dug on the spot where they fell, in the
midst of prairie near the dwelling, their corpses,
pierced with bullet holes in every part, were thrown
in, and the earth was heaped over them.
The pursuit of David Driscoll and the fellow
who was with him when Campbell was killed. is
still going on with great activity: More than a
hundred men are traversing the country in different
directions, determined that no lurking place shall
hide them. In the meantime various persons who
have the reputation of being confedcrates of horse
thieves, not only in Ogle county, but in all the ad
Joining oes even in this, have received notice from
the regulators that they cannot be allowed to remain
in this state. Several suspicious looking men, sup
posed to be fugi,ives from ogle county have been
seen, within few days past, lurking in the woods
not far from this place. One of them who was seen
the day before yesterday evidently thought himself
pursued and SUNK from sight; he followed, but
escaped in the thickets leaving bundle of clothing
behind him.
SaaoSoK, Kane Co., (Ill) July S.
have Just heard that another Of tho DrscolPs
has been shot by the regulators. Whether it was
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