Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1867-09-13
The Old Element.

1u0 OlQ Element.
No act in the Southern States more sig
nifcantly shows the need of military or
loyal government there, than recent case
Of whipping d poor defenceless negro girl
ia North Carolina, and no other single act
Of inhumanity more clearly indicates the
luminosity yet existing among the rebels
against the former slaves, and it most
clearly shows how unwise it would be to
put the government into the hands of these
former Shareholders.
The case above referred to was brought
to the notice Of the military authorities,
and the parties tried and sentenced to va
rious penalties. Gen. Sickles, commander
Of the military district, approved the find
ings OF the Court, and in reviewing the
evidence gave the following history Of the
affair:
The evidence in the foregoing cases
discloses deed Of lawless and inhuman
violence. 1t appears that daughter Of
one Of the prisoners, having attempted to
beat a young colored girl, met with resis-
lance which became successful, and result
ed in the chastisement of the white by the
black. This nnlooked-for reversal of a
long accustomed relation filed the neigh
borhood with CONSERVATION and rage.
Couriers passed to and fro from farm to
farm, infaming the temper Of The people,
and concerning measures to produce terror
among the negroes. A meeting Of citi-
mas convene nt a school hoase near
the residence Of tho parties. The accused
were among those assembled. The mag
istrate, Jenkins, was invited to lend the
sanction Of his presence, aud did so. Phil
lis, the young freedwoman, was sent for.
Dragged before this self-constituted con-
clave OF angry men, whom she had been
accustomed from infancy to call masters,
some Of whom she now heard urging her
incarceration, while one swore she should
be hung, and all agreed that she must be
imprisoned or whipped, the frightened girl
exclaimed that she had rather be whipped
than GO 10 jail. This was taken as the
expression of the assent which they de-
sired. Some sort of writing was drawn
up, called an indenture, by which Phillis,
having signed it, was made TO bind herself
as an apprentice TO one Mrs. Harmon, who
thereupon consented that her so.called
ward should be fogged. Quite enough
was thought TO have been thus conceded
to the mockery of legal formalities, and
the impatient assemblage, consisting Of all
the prisoners who have been convicted ex-
cept the magistrate, FASTENED 10 execute
the penalty awarded. Phillis was con-
Quoted into an adjacent wood, where, at
spot some sixty yards remote from any
road, she was halted and told to take down
her dress. She not obeying with alacrity,
one Of the prisoners snatched it off her
shoulders. Stripped to her waist, except
of her chenlise, she was then whipped by
five of these men in succession, by whom
according to the testimony of one of them,
one hundred and twenty-six lashes were
inflicted upon her half-naked body with
rods three feet long and one-half to three
eights of an inch thick. Her garment
WIS cit through and through; blood run
from the wales raised on her larcerated
back; one cash in her flesh three days af-
Ter showed four inches in length the
heavy blows fell upon her person at ran
dom she was pushed, she was pulled, she
was kicked in the abdomen till at last it
seems that one of the accused, an applaud
iDg-by-stander, not utterly insensible to
the suferings and sex of the wretched
victim, was SO far touched by the specta-
cleof her torture that the cry was wrung
from him, Boys, don't hurt her breast ;
Having satiated their savage vengeance,
her tormentors, fatigued by their exer-
tons, withdrew not, however, without
considering the proposal of one OF their
number TO return and give her ten more
lashes each to stop her screaming. Finally
the poor child, wounded and grooming,
was permitted TO make her way to the
house Of her mistress, where for days she
suffered, scarcely able to crawl to her un-
RENTED task, or even to wear her clothes
without pain.
In the revolving crime thus briefly out
lined all of these prisoners are shown to
have been eager participants. In the in
terest of outraged justice it is to be de-
plored that the perpetrators have been adj