The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1865-07-21

Voting revelations before the Circuit Court
for Talbot county, extended accounts of
whose proceedings have for two weeks
sensationized the press and excited the
public of this State. Yet the veteran
sinner in this horrible crime has escaped
his just deserts and stalks a threatening
freeman, his soul scared by the fellest guilt
that ever cursed reprobate to Gods
eternal justice. With the fact clearly
proven that his own hand fred one of the
fatal shots-despite his cunning precau-
tions-with the positive proof that he led
the band Of murderers to the commissions
of the shocking deed, and leaving the
llfeless victims of his hate bleeding beside
their unfinished labors, led the assassins
triumphantly away-yet the hoary prince
of murderers escapes the retribution of
the law, when an humble transgressor
would have paid the penalty with his life.
We have fallen indeed upon evil times
The narrative of these tragic scenes seems
like some fearful legend, fraught with
guilt and shame. 1t comes to us more
like the long buried mystery of savage
era than the realization of an enlightened
present.
After fifteen years of wrong, injury,
insult and outrage, q beardless boy, the
only support of helpless widow, is ruth
lessly,' deliberately and maliciousl y butch
cred in broad daylight, that his fathers
robber may obtain and enjoy his paltry
inheritance But the novel of deprayity
does not finish here. In the face of an
outraged public opinion, in defiance of
stern responsibility to God, in utter dis
regard of law, justice and morality, jury
of twelve men, ignoring all the evidence
in the case, regardless of every dictate of
reason, conscience and right, have the
effrontery to blazon either their stupidity,
prejudice or venality, by decision as
wilfully criminal as the black hearted as
sassins they were empannelled to try
BY their verdict they have virtually pro-
nounced that John p. Paca of E., came
10 his death by some unseen agency, and
have admitted the murderers as accidental
witnesses of the strange phenomena that
some invisible body having summoned
these men to the spot, fred their guns for
them, tbking the life of an innocent boy
and inspiring these infallible bystanders to
insult the mother while bathing with her
tears the cooling forehead of her child
Did guilt ever aspire to such insolence,
stupidity ever accept such high RESPONSE
bility, or venal natures desecrate mart
SO sacred by transaction so Infamous?
Truly Maryland is becoming a more
than Gilead, where criminals not only
escape the avenging hand, but every grade
of crime is excused, the guilty given the
immunity of acquittal, as recommends
ton to the honors of society, and murder
ers applauded according to the enormity
or brutality of their crime. Well may
the quiet citizen tremble for the safety of
his hearthstone. The safeguards of the
law have now become means for the alb
solution and justification of villainy, in
stead Of punishment for the guilty and
protection for society. The great end and
intent Of government has been perverted
and abused, and the greater the culprit
the more obsequious and partial his
judges.
The press, demoralized by war, kneel
with that stultifed-for we do not wish
to say subsidized-jury, and worship in
silence and shame that rich murderer's
gold. The voice of the humble citizen
alone, and one or two journals, to their
credit be it spoken, fired with honest in
dignation, and spurning with contempt
the ill-gotten gains OF rapine and blood,
lift voice of condemnation, nor shrink
from the duty of crushing vice and brand
ing as is due, the cruel, cowardly and re.
voting deed. We know that the task is
delicate, but we will not shrink from the
issue. Had the murderer of John p.
Paca of Il. been poor humble man, i'm
patient justice would have launched its
fiercest bolts and hurled its deadliest
blows. AS it is, the veteran sinner is
turned free once more, to repeat the les
son for which he has just passed pre-
tended trial. He can now 60 back and
murder the widow starving by his machi-
nations; butcher tho children that stand
in the way Of his plumber, and appropri.
ate the estate he has so assiduously labor
ed to obtain. The same jury may be
summoned and new license obtained
but we would say to that gray-haired,
shameless assassin, that there is just
God above him, who holds the dial aud
mocks the shadow of fleeting years; who
knows the baseness of his heart and the
wickedness of his life; that the spirits of
his dead brother and slaughtered victims
are at His bar, to testify before an Impair
tial, incompatible Judge; and that when
few more short days shall have passed
away, and his gray head shall fall in the
dust, an avenging hand shall grasp his
guilty soul, and drag it to the awful tor.
lures of the "undying worm" and the
sssecond DEATH" We would warn him in
charity then to devote the remainder Of
his days to repentance and atonement for
his dark and guilty past. To put on
sackcloth and go down in dust and ashes !;