Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-11-18
TERRORISM I'm TEXAS.
The MurderOus Operations of
the Radical State Police.
Citizens Dragged from Their
Homes and Cruelty
- Assassinated.
Gangs of Fiends in Constant
Search of Fresh Victims.

Correspondence Of the New York World

~.
Correspondence Of the New York World.
AUSTIN, TEXAS, Nov. 6.-Never before
has there been such reign of terror in
the sIone Star Stateo as at the present
time. No mans life is safe from the in
famous gang Of cut-throats whose muir
ders are .legalised by the commissions as
Estate police.n None dare, even to their
neighbors and friends, express their hor-
ror at the atrocities perpatrated daily by
these fiends, lest they may be the next
victims. Justice is blind, law forgotten,
and mercy dead. Each mail brings to us
news of the most appalling tragedies, and
the air is full of rumors which curdle the
blood, yet tell but half the truth of the
diabolical cruelties of homly preparation
by thes pitiless murderers whose tyranny
over US Is absolute,
But Maj. Gen. joseph links Reynolds
organized the internal band of cut-throats,
the Estate police, composed of outlaws,
muderers and highway robbers, and by
the instFumentSiity of this class was ena-
bled to declare the election of Gov. Davis,
in defiance of majority of the citizens,
whose will was clearly expressed by their
overwhelming vote for bis opponent, Gov.
Hamilton. Davis and an infamous set of
scoundrels in the Legislature have main
tanned and even enlarged the irresponsible
power of the band Of murderers organ
lied by Reynolds. The chief of the gang
is the notorious Jack Helm, a merciless
villain, whose heart is black with multi
tudes of nameless crimes, and whose
hands are red with the blood of hundreds
of innocen. men-sn ignorant man, the
ready and INSCRIPTIONS tool of the
wretches whom he serves-avaricious, I'M
feeling, without an idea of respect for
law, the rights of property, or the sacred
of human life. All that has been said of
Helm will apply wAh equal force and
truth to his right-hand man, G. S. Bell,
who shamelessly boasts of the numbers of
innocent, inoffensive, and unarmed men
whom he has
SLAUGHTERED IN COLD BLOOD.
These men have acted with such def
ance Of all law that the people believe,
and with justice, that they have been
given by the reigning authorities full des-
potic power over the lives and property
of the citizens of the State. The men
under their command are criminals who
have been fugitives from justice in Mexi-
co, and have returned to accept of this
congenial employment; fellows who have
committed murders I'd robberies all over
the State; ''road agents" a. g. highway
robbers) from the plsins and mountains;
scoundrels whom vigilance committees
have warned out of every town in Colo
RADIO, and desperadoes from the Eastern
States. These are our Estate police.
THE CHARGES AGAINST JACK HELM.
Some idea Of the atrocities they peTpe-
trate is given by the charges brought
against Jack Helm, as their chief, by the
Hon. B. J. Pridgen, the Republican State
Senator from the district il which they
have been chiefly operating. Mr.. Pridgen,
although member of the party which
has brought into being this iendish mon
strosity of estate police" is Mortified
at their acts, and is using his best efforts
to remove the curse from us. His word
may be implicitly relied upon. In a let
ter published over his signature on yester-
day, he says:
prisoners, generally, who are killed
by the notorious Jack Helm or his crowd,
are abandoned to the mercy of buzzards,
wolves, and hogs. On my recent visit to
my home l was Mortified to witness the
alarming condition of the people of that
section. Expressions of the most appall-
ing character were upon them. They ex-
pressed themselves as believing that Gov.
Davis had commissioned Jack Helm with
absolute authority over the lives and
property of the citizens, and they felt in
secure in regard to both. They were I'M
willing to make comment upon the official
conduct of Helm, or his men, less the
wrath of his laWless crowd of prisoner
murderers and regulators should be visited
upon them. Communities were dissolved
and society broken up, from the fact that
neighbors were afraid to let their families
visit each other for fear something might,
in social conversation, be said that would
be improperly construed against Helm
and his crowd, and he magnitied into mis-
chief. He had the country completely
terrorized, and many of the citi-
zens, upon hearing me express my
disspprobation of his lawless and TN
authorized conduct, would approach me
with whispering admonitiOns to desist;
that knew Helm and the numbering band
that stood ready to do his hesrtless bid
ding He was making arrests without
charges against the parties, and went so
far as to levy contributions and obtain
money by exactions upon the people con-
trary to all laws of the State. He arrest
ed and kept men in custody for weeks,
until the courts turned them loose because
there was no charge against them. Instead
ofhaviDg designated Office and remaining
at it to receive orders from headquarters
and reports from his subordinates, and
transmitting them, he himself keep con-
stantly in the saddle, swinging to and fro
over the country, apparently exulting in
the manner in which he is terrifying the
people. Helm is comparatively an igno-
rant man, knows nothing about the laws
of the State, audless about the rights of the
citizens. He is an INSCRIPTIONS liar, which
added to his recklessness and indiscretion,
renders it extremely dangerous to the
people of Western Texas for him to be
clothed with the authority of captain of
police. A majority of the policemen un-
der him are not only ignorant and can
scarcely write their names, but stand
charged with having shed the blood of
some human being. Criminals who for
years have been refugees from the law
aud country, have lately returned from
Mexico, and are now acting under Helm
as policemen. Especially are his volun-
teer aids Gas they are called lawless
class of men, and serious charges of muir
der arc made against them. make these
charges as an officer of the State, because
| believe | can substantiate them, and
that it is my duty, under the cireum-
stances, to do so. | make them as an in
dividual, because l am responsible for
them, and am not ignorant of the blight
ing effects of SANDER.
THE MUREER OF THE KELLYs.
One of the most recent atrocities per-
petrated by Helms murderers, of which
particulars have been obtained, is the
murder of the Kellys. Generally, when
a victim isselected, nothing moreis known
of the manner of his slaughter than that
he has been called away from his family
by gang of three to half dozen
mounted and armed men, who visit his
house and arrest him without any war
rant, even without troubling themselves
to state any charge against him. They
take him off into the nearest wOods-the
report of gun is heard-they are seen
to ride away without their prisoner, and
when some neighbor trembling in dread,
that the asssssins may punish him even
for the poor sympathy of Christian burial