Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1859-07-29
nR- Willing to do Justice to all parties

we give place to the following communication
which we are assured comes from . responsible
source. Our correspondent is mistaken, however,
when he asserts that the report Of the meeting
ferrcd to was prcfaced with remarks of our own.
Tho report was purely official.
Nh. EDlroR IL see in your issue of the 18th inst.
two resolutions passed at mass meeting Of cti-
zens of southern Rock Island and northern Mercer
counties, headed by editorial in relation to the
treatment BY the officers of the men who were ar.
rested for the murder of Charles s. Bean, and
knowing something about the case, it may not be
amss for me to state some facts connected with the
arrest of those men and of their treatment under
| arrest.
1t is true so far as the action of tho officers hav
ing them in charge is concerned that they acted
like men and, a relative of those men, tender
my thanks to Messrs. Charles Reynolds, James
Reynolds, ard James Underwood for their manly
and honorable bearing toward my uncle and cou-
sins. l am sorry, for the credit of humanity and
for the name of our county, that cannot say as
much of others who were engaged in the arrest; or
rather who took part in it. The prisoners made
no attempt at escape-made no resistance; and yet
after their deliverance into the hands of those who
came for them one man presented a loaded and
cooked pistol at the breast Of Jasper Hampton and
held it until Hampton changed his clothes. Mr..
Henry Hampton was taken to Beans house aud
tied down on bed, and while thus tied one Of the
persons drew loaded and cooked rife upon him,
swearing that he should die. This may be Kind and
humane treatment Of arrested and deenseless pris-
oncrs but it So fail to recognize any humanity or
geutemanly- bearing about it.
! most respectfully dissent from the language of
the resolution wherein it is charged that certain
persons have reported as act of inhumanity the
removal Of the prisoners to Drury's Landing aud
treating them kindly until it became convenient to
convey them to Rock Island. No one certainly, OBJ
iected to their kind treatment and removal to Rock
Island. In fact the prisoners were so anxious to
get there that they paid their own fare on the
steamboat, and the persons who drew up those res
olutions were sadly misled.
The meeting, however, may have been better
postedthan or those with whom have couversed,
but publications of this sort have about them the air.
think, of desire to pre- occupy the minds Of the
community against the accused and, in this manner,
create an "outslde pressure that will efectually
destroy upon trial the letter and spirit of the legal
maxim: "All men are innocent until proven guilty."
The main facts of the commission Of the homicide,
the inquest of the Coroners jury and the names Of
persons implicated, published as an item of news.
no one can will object to. But to impute reports
and sayings to persons of which they not guilty,
and to use such mputations for the purpose of Civ
ing color to testimony hereafter to be introduced is
of a piece with drawing loaded weapon upon a
bound and defense .ess prisoner, and against it
wish to enter my protest, respectfully yet firmly.
So far and until this appears in print the Hamp-
tons have not their friends for them uttered one
word through the press in extenuaton of the crime
with which they stand charged or the circumstances
connected Herewith Itissad enough, God knows
to have to destroy fellowbeng in defense of ones
SELF and when this is SO done. as the accused say,
in preservation of their own lives and after long
and patient submission to abuse, aspersions and
threats the press should not be used as a vehicle
| for conveying injurious impressions against those
who are placed in situation rendering it impossi
BILE for them to counteract the influence Of such i'm
presssions or in any way contradict false rumors
Hoping you will give this communication place
in your columns-wrtten not so much to contradict
what has already appeared as to give your readers
an inkling of what the defense may be and to put
them on their guard as to false Impressions
remain your obi. sevt,
QUINCY MCNEIL.