The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1860-07-11
MURDER ASb LYNCH LAw.-Ths hanging Of
Jacob Kepheart. at Batavia Station, in Jeffer.

Jacob Kepheart, at Batavia Station, in Jeffer
son county, Iowa, for the murder of womaf
and her two children, by a mob on the 5th
has been noticed. letter to the Chicago
Journal gives the following account of the
crime for which hs was punished
Their dead and fnutilated bodies were dis
Covered on Saturday BY fishing party, An
Cedar Greek, into which they had been throwr
by the murderer. The murder was probably
perpetrated four or five days previously &c
the finding of the bodies. The woman was
about thirty years Of age, aud had two terri.
Bile gashes on her forenead, evidently cut by
an axe and her skull was broken. One of the
children is a little boy, about five years of age
his head is also terribly cut, and the skull
br' ken. The other child is a little girl, about
three years oidi her head also badly mutt.
lated.
had no aecomplice. James Harvey Willis, d
boy. and son of the murdered woman; was
fouBd in the wagon with the murderer when
arrested. This boy relates the whole story
He says kepheart poisoned his father, William
Willis, TO death with rychnine, last fail nd
that he has been living with Mrs. Willis ever
since. They were now on their way to Kan
sas. At Eddyville, the boy says, his mother
and little brother and sister went to sleep in
the wagon last Thursday evening, and in the
morning he woke up and found her dead, and
gashes cut in her skull. When the children
got out of the wagon the heartless wretch
caught the two youngest and murdered them
with an axe. He then placed the bodies in the
wagon and drove thirty miles, to Cedar Greek,
where he threw them in the water, and tried
to hide them under by throwing heavy log
upsn them. Murder will out" however,
This kepheart is . man about 60 years old.
A letter from Fairfield Iowa to the Bur-
lington Hawkeye, states that kepheart was
iynched on the 5tn inst. About two hundred
and fifty men from the vicinity OF Batavia,
where the victims were found, organized on
h.NrG
the courthouse and Jail, where tbe murderer
was confined, and surrounded ;. The citizens
rapidly assembled. The coun Judge and
several citizens addressed and urged them to
let the law take its course. This was of no
avail. They said they had come for Kepheart
and they would have him, and they had erect
ed his scaffold and dug his grave. They then
took a scantliDg and battered down the doors
10 his cell, and then quietly carried bim to the
place where the crime was committed and
there hung him.
A SPEcK OF WAR-The London Times on
Gen. Harney.-The London Times of the ~ tn
has long and bitter article on the San Juan
Island affair, in which Gen Harney comes in
for some earnest denunciation. The follow.
ing is the conclusion of the article:
We are now called upon to show that we
have the courage TO repel, as we'll as the mod
GRAFTON TO overlook, an insult, The American
Government has thought fit, most upfortu.
nately, TO retain in his command that General
w hose culpable breach of the duty which he
owed to bis country on the first OCCASION and
the obedience due to his commanding officer
on the second, have left us no reason to doubt
that he is bent on creating breach between
the two countries. That portion of his in
structions in which he con tends that the rights
of Great Britain are disposed of by the inso-
lent usurpauon OF a subordinate American
Assembly, and menaces violence if the us a pa
tion be not respected, is gross insult TO this
country, wantonly perpetrated by an officer
to whose known ill-will the very delicate re-
lationS between England and the United
States have been intrusted.
We have right TO demand that an officer
whose continuance in command has been
proved 10 be inconsistent with good under
standing between the two nations shall be al
once recalled, and we have besides right to
insist that, now America repudiates Joint
occupation during negotiations and treats lis
as only present by sufferance, her forces shall
be withdraw from the island, together with
our own, and tie whole matter left TO treaty
or, if this may not be, TO the arbitration of a
third power. We cannot bring ourselves to
believe that terms so reasonable can be reiecl.
ed. We do not desire for q moment to insist
upon the superiority of the resources of which
at ms moment we dispose. The island itself
would not be worth one .hundredth part q
the losses and calamities that must ensue from
the in terruption for single week of a good
understanding between the two countries
but there is a thing dearer even than ease and
wealth, and that thing is national honor. We
have not called rorth our young men from the
peaceful avocatiOns of ordinary life and put
arms in their hands, in order to exhibit tC
them in return for their heroic efforts the
spectacle OF a country which has no respect
tor herself, and invites, by her tameness, the
injuries she dares not repei.
ROUTE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES The
London Times, speaking of the intended visi,
OF the Prince of Wales to this country, says:
The Prince of Wales will first land at ST
Johns, Newfoundland, then visit Nova SEQ.
tia, and thence proceed to New Brunswick
and Prince Edwards Island and will reach
z uebec by the route of the St. Lawrence He
may be expected at Mon treal about the 23d OF
August, and the opening of the Victoris
bridge will take place a few days later. His
Royal Highness will represent Her Majesty
upon this important national occasion, and
will hold levees and receive addresses in the
apitals of the different colonies. 1t is in.
tended that the Prince should visit the prin.
cipal towns in both the Canadian provinces
On mis- return from the Western districts, il
is intended that his Royal Highness should
drop all Royal state, and assumirg the It'll,
of Lord Renfrew, under which he has before
travelled upon the continent of Europe, his