Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1871-12-01
Those Signs of Guilt.

Wouiu hot Getfay confusion II suddenly arrCS
ted on charge of murder. There are few
communities, however peaceablc, which would
not DO thrown into disorder by u proclamation
of martial law. The more peaccablo com
munty the stronger the probability Of uni
vcrsal hiding or stampede. These rules ap
piled to affairs in South Carolina will explain
much that is currently alleged as justifying
Mr.. Grants military violence in that State.
Suddenly, aud like thunder out of clear
sky, martial law fell upon tho inhabitants of
nine unoffending counties. Without the
slightest intimaton-for a warning of five
days to region destitute Of tclegraphic facl.
tiles and only accessible by mail once week
is no warning-tho privilege of the writ of
nadcas corpus was suspended and the military
the public to make wholesale and arbitrary
arrests. The natural result followed. The
whole invaded district was thrown into the
widest confusion Many who could get
away fed many others concealed themselves /;
confessions Of guilt. We fancy that if this
7 CITY, or Philadelphia, or Boston were to day
put under martial law, there would be Il
stampede and conccalmcnt Of citizens equal
to anything taking place in South Carolina
took plooc i'll Fruuvv, wlIuG thu restored Stu.
arts began to rersccute the Puritans in Eng.
land, when these same Puritans prepared the
stake and dungeon for Anabaptists and Qua.
kers, there were wild and tumultuous flights,
hurried and timorous conccalmcnts; but it is
not the judgment of history that these cs
capes and cvaslons arc to be regarded as
signs of guilt. Similarly when in the twink
lug OF an eye, dragons and artillery arc let
loose upon tho people Of South Carolina,
when the courts arc closed aud the laws sus.
pended, when warrants in blank arc issued by
the hundred and arrests made every mid
night by the score, it is not surprising that
men arc seeking flight or conccalment on cv.
cry hand. When avails their innocence it,
when arrested, they protest it There is no
court to take cognizancc of any such arrest,
and no writ of huLcdS co1pnS to test the c
'gality of that plea by which the prisoner is
held. The American citizen arrested to day
in the proclaimed districts of South Carolina
Is where the English victim Of the Star Cham.
bcr WAS in the time Of the eighth Henry and
the first James. The liberalization of tho
law for 500 years is reversed against him, and
'he lies when arrested us fully Mt tho mercy of
Mr.. Grant as any Englshman of the sixteenth
century at the mercy of tho worst of the Tu.
dor or the Stuart race.
But it may be said: Not all have fed or
gone into hiding; there are many who have
given themselves up and confessed that they
belonged to the l<u Klux Khan It is true
that we hear of many surrenders and comics.
sions such as mentioned but while the sur.
renders count ~ the hundreds, the confys
sions count by the ten. In one place we hear
of 800 men surrendcring themselves to the
military in body, asking as they did so for
discharge and parole and in another place
there is mention of some thirty alliluvits OF
connection with tho I<u klux lilnn-ail
drawn up i'll the same hand writing and sign
p cd by persons only able to mako their mark
In these two circumstances the worth nf snro
surrendcrs and confessions as proofs of guilt
may be easily disccrncd. The "surrendcrs'
arc simply applications to tic military author
itics for safe conducts the confessions" arc
some Of the romancing of Jonathan Wild
Akerman's subordinatcs, duly sworn to hv the
first black that comes along. Yo,A
World.
IA THE SoUrII CAROLINA BOND FRAuDs.-
Our New York correspondent, in his letter
under date of the I'D inst, in speaking Of
these bonds says: "Thc South Carolina
bOnu lrau1S nave Occn SO well ventilated IN
| this city, that it was almost an abortiye at.
tempt for the auctioncer to offer a quantity
8 of them for sale in the Exchange .Salesroon
4 yesterday. Every effort was made to induce
1.-The spectators to invest, and specimen bonds
men freely exhibited, and yet the first lot OF
Z $4,000 South Carolina Six Per Cent. new
bonds, interest April and October, (hypothe
cated,) was sold for % and 24a per cont
This was bad enough, but when the seller of
fercd what purportcd to be 7 per cent bonds
no bids could be got, and the interested par
ties bid them in at 5 per cent. They were
another issue of the new bonds, interest payn
rible January and July, and were pronounced
fraudulent securities by mon who have han
! died thousands of the bon Is of the State, be.
cause they were drawn for seven nstcad of
six per ccut. interest. Others maintained
that the bonds, if not actual forgnrics, bu,
$ bona fide securities, could not draw more
! than six per cent, and even this WAS doubt
full with the present State Government. Ii
was stated, coniidentially, to well known
I, 6nencicr later in tho day, that the bonds were
sent by parties to this market to be sold for
l, whatever they would bring, and were known
F., to tho frauds in South Caroline, from whence
they cmannted The total amount of these
frauds offered yesterday, was $500 ,000 but
, there arc more of the kind supposed to be
kept back until the status of this amount was
prescribed"
/. AN ILLINOIS HnRcULEs. Givin,
of Decatur, was yesterday helping to get a
80 81 ~ kl,n,