The Daily state register. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1870-1872, 1871-04-05
THE vIGILANTEs OF STOREY.


ginia City and Gold Hill continue to
ship the desperate characters they
have nurtured into disregard of law
by their W supineness, to other
communities less ableto defend them
selves against lawlessness. In this
the committees infict a wrong upon
every neighborhood in which N of
the expatriated may happen to bring
up-especially ifthat neighborhood be
within the borders of this State. In
California facilities for travel and COM
m~unication are so much greater thai
N Nevada that it has become next TO
Impossible for stage robbers. murder
ers and the like to escape the officers
Of the law: while here, if these men
are forced t 20 leave merely the corpor-
ate limits of Virginia and Gold Hill,
they take to the highways or unpro-
tected mining camps, from which.
after the commission of a crime, they
can easily escape to the mountains
and evade peace officers. 1t these
men are TO be driven out of Storey
county tand all those who have no Wis
ible and lawful means of support
ought to be-, the committees ought TO
see that they leave the State for Storey
county, and particularly Virginia
City, has no right, in sloughing of its
own peculiar spawn, to betoul the
whole State herewith, and spew its
lawlessnes> and loafers out upon COM
munities whose people have been less
remiss in duty and have enforced the
laws.
But, as the Virginia Committee
started Off wrong, in hanging what the
White Pine News characterizes as a
virtual corpse" it is hardly to be eN-
Dected that it Will include itself in its
work of reformation. \ wild mob,
born of a sudden excitement raised by
some shocking crime. IS prolific of ret
rIbutive Justice, and subsidies general
ly without committing further wrong
than dealing out such punishment as
the law might infiict: but for Il con-
tinued series of o II and lawless
acts, for All egOti>m p~artaking of the
onIniscience and for 4 continued
reign of terror. commend Us to your
organized, armed. deliberative and
cooi-headed mob. like that of Virginia
City. From eXpatriating the suSpi-
cious, eXtorting confessions from the
suspected and hanging the virtually
condemned with their chains dangling
about their limbs, this Committee has
taken upon itself the violation of the
most sacred rights guaranteed to their
citizens by the United States and
State Constitutions, and has abridged
the freedom of speech. Citizens of
Virginia City, if we are rightly in
formed, as respectable and worthy as
any member of that Committee, have
been notified that unless they dry
up or their cenSure of the law
less acts Of this organized mob, they
must leave their business and their
homes, or abide the cOnsequences-in
other words, if they do not desist from
expressing their honest convictions,
they will be expatriated or hanged.
If there are any good men connected
with the Committee, such should use
their influence to have it disbanded at
once, for it has already brought suffi-
cient disgrace upon their community,
and if the mob Is to exercise its terror
ism over the good and bad alike, for
opinions sake, Virginia City and its
people will become a byword and re-
prodch to the State.