Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-09-12


RrrurEp.-We see every now aud then
a paragraph relative to crime in Mem
phis, which 10 our certain knowledge,
has been on the wing for the last SIX
months at least, aud which Is still going
the rounds Of the Northern. press. Iis
face has become quite familiar from so
frequent meetings, and only this morn
ing our old acquaintance turned up in
Philadelphia. A week or two since we
encountered II in conspicuous type, out
West, and IL we are not greatly
mistaken, we have come across IL
in its travels twice, IL not oitener, in the
same columns. Itrelates TO q shocking
number Of murders in Memphis on the
10Th, and as the tenth Of what is not
stated, and as no one has taken the
trouble to state what, il is presumed by
the reader to have reference probably TO
the tenth Of the present or the last month,
as the case may be. 1t did originally re-
fer, we believe, to the tenth Of January
last, but for the past six months
or more, il has referred to most anything
the reader might choose-in short, 1t the
reader was supposed to have any prefer
ence at all in the matter, he has been left
entirely free to exercise it. For our own
part, we think the thing is about played
out" 1t has become quite as unjust as
il is stale, and it is high time that 1t was
stopped. Whatever unenviable reputa-
ton Memphis may have borne in the
murder line in times past, she
certainly is no longer entitled to
the distinction, and we take it upon
ourselves to disclaim for her any further
pretentions whatever thereto. Outside
of the occasional bloody fruits of Radi-
cal teachings and the poisoning OF the
negro mind, we do not believe there is
city ON the continent in which life is
safer. There certainly is none where
the white element of society is more or
Derby or peaceable. The paragraph
therefore, in question, and others of
similar purport, are baseIy SANDER
GUS and calculated to do our city
great injustice and ipjary abroad.
We are no more in the killing
business Just now than our virtuous
neighbors Of New England, and life and
limb are every way as secure in Mem
phis to-day as they are in Boston. We
might say more. However disorganized
society may have been in Memphis and
the South by the war and at its close,
the annals of crime South fail to show
anything of that fine art in murder SO
extensively practiced in the North.
That which has been done in the
one section compares with that in
the other, as passion and hot
blood compare with deliberate, pre-
conceived and beartless villainy. In
the one instance man may have met man
in the public way, and by the light of
day, and shot him down. Ia the other,
there has been that admixture of horror
and mystery in life-taking, that higher
school of butchery, which has found re-
course to slow poisons, straDglings, and
al the subtler means for the accomplish
ment of death and the concealment there
Of, when accomplished; woman muir
der, fratricide, infanticide, the visitation
of death upon the old, the decrepid,
and the helpless. The history of crime
in the South is illustrated with no such
horrors. 1t is left for New England to
monopolize this branch of the business,
as the columns of her own papers will
testify. And while such continues to be
the case we trust our friends North will
have nothing more whatever to say about
us in the matter of murders.
The POLICE AND THE SALOON KEEPERS.
In the Municipal Court last evening, the
habeas corpus case of the State VS.. Lu-
carino was continued until two clock
Monday evening. The defendant was
arrested and tried by the Police Commits
sioners for doing business without
license, and sentenced to pay fine of
City dollars, and on failure to pay the
same was sent to the city lookup for one
hundred days. The charge was that the
City Tax Collector demanded the sum of
one hundred and fifty dollars for license,
which the defendant refused to pay, be-
lieving the law required only seventy
ave dollsrs. The Tax Collector refusing
to grant license, the defendant was ar
rested by the police for not haging
the same. This is one of the
several cases growing out OF the re-
pested arrest of saloon.keepers for
alleged failure to take out license, and
the Chancellor yesterday granted the de-
PENDANTS an injunction restraining the
Board of Police Commissioners and the
Tax Collector from further molesting
them. u
ROBBED IN Eis STArERooM.-Mr VIM.
Hickey, an Illinois cattle drover, was
robbed of his watch on the City of Alton |
last night, while a passenger on that
packet on her last trip to this city. Mr..
Fl. had placed bis time piece, together
with his money, some $50, under his
I'll. an -aAirinn the ninht hefnre and |