The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1872-11-09
rHE 1RREPREssIBLE MAcKEE.

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Charge-Thesm smantlo of Jefreys FAN
ing ON Mackey.
It appears from the Yorkvllle Enquirer, OF
the 7th instant, that his Honor Thomas Jener-
son Mackey, the irrepressible judge Oh the
Sixth Circuit, whose insatiate itching for noto-
riety Ia well known to the readers OF The
NEWS. has broken out in new place. IL WILL
be remembered that upon the recent dlssolu-
tion of his court at Chester he delivered nim-
self of a sort of post-mortem cnarge to 'llo
| grand iury In which, with ghoulish ferVor
| that would have done credit to Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe or Victoria Woodruff, he raReo
up the dead and buried corpse OF hu-hiuAis"'
and ratified the dry bones OF that piayeo-out
ske,eton with blood.curdling eloquence. on
that occasion he seemed to be following the
famous last words of Lord Marmion-"Cnsrge
Chester, charge;" and now ne appears 70 %
naraphrasing the last sentence of that famous
erordium into ..'On, Mackey, on" He mas
i moved on to Yorkyllle, and at the opening OF
his court there, on Monday last, he unourden-
| od h,mself of another charge on the same
snbiecr: and to Judge from the quantity Oh DIG
md venop, which 1t contains, 1t must nave re-
IIeved his internal organization Immensely to
have got 1t of his stomach.
This charge, as reported In the Enquirer, is
a remarkable document. 1t Ia. of course, I'm
mensely funny, but, looked at In another as
pect. It is also malicious and mischievous. 1t
| Is likewise ghastly. and In some OF Its express
slons it rises to the dignity of being hendlsh.
II Ia not necessary to remind the reader that
bis Honor Judge Mackey can, upon occasion,
dsplay all these traits with the utmost ease,
and 1t really seems that they all como natural
| In him. He is q versatile actor, and can be IN
turu wit, an incendsry, ghoul or hend,
or. like Clark In the Corsican Brothers, he can
take sny two of these characters together,
and, as Mrs. Malaprop said OF the Dromios, be
1.-TWO gentlemen at onoe."
The document is too long to be printed en-
tire. and, besides. some people might read 1t
| Who don't know bis Honor Judge Mackey, and
they might think there was some truth In the
horrible picture which he draws of affairs In
York County. The effect would be similar to
that once produced by scene In the panto-
mime Of Humpty Dumpty. When Geo. Fox
first put this piece upon the stage of the
OLYMPIC Theatre, in New York, he had one
rick scene In which his brother, the Panta-
loon, was apparentlyaurledi into the air by
steamboat explosion and distributed In frag-
ments all over the stage. It was good
scene. and the two Foxes, standing at the
wings, used to enjoy 1t Immensely; but 1t was
80 realistic that the children and nursemaidS
| were always affected to tears, and 1t had to be
left out.
| In these two charges Judge Mackey has
painted, In graphic "distemper" colors,
number of scenes of Ku.Klux violence which,
If they ever existed at all. outside of the imag:
instion Of the Tribune correspondents, have
long since ceased to exist, and he takes good
! care not to mention the date Of their alleged
occurrence, but speaks of them vaguely as
| happening tin the recent past" This Is as If
one should argue from the Webster-Parkman
| murder in ls4s that an epidemic of crime Is
now:raglug In Harvard College. He glows
over the vIndlcation made by the United
States Government, in purer days of the Re.
public, of the sacredness of the person of an
American citizen In foreign countries, but con-
veniently forgets the shooting down of Amer
ican citizens by Spanish soldiers In the streets
of Havana, under the benign administration OF
! Nessrs. Grant and Fish. And worst OF
all, because this transcends the limits
of dramatic eloquence, (Which We all
know Judge Mackey must have or burst,)
and becomes judicial mandate, he charges
the grand jury that they must therefore
make most rigid Inquistion into the organ
fzed system Of crime in question, and present
for indictment and speedy trial all persons
who may be shown, by the testimony before
you, to have been concerned therein, ,ohether
such persons stand indicted tnthe United States
Court for violating the enforcement act of Con-
gress or not.
Alter Issuing this command, the Judge Is
kind enough to leave the subject of :Ku-Klnx.
Ism, and he is merclful enough to omit to or
der that the unfortunates who are now, under
sentence OF Judge Bond, dragging out weary
years of imprisonment at Albany for alleged
acts of Ku-Kluxlsm, shall be rearrested on
their release and tried over again before his
august tribunal.
he next turns hls attention to the recent
letter of the Hon. B. F. Perry, which has al
ready been published in TIE NEWS. That let
ter was written siacs the judges Chester
charge, OF he would doubtless have had it out
with the distinguished author then and there.
At Yorkvile, however, the Judge lowered bis
casque, couched his lance and began bis tilt
at the letter as follows:
The court desires further, gentlemen OF the
grand Jury, to bring 10 your attention another
matter not entirely Irrelevant to the one just
considered. The newspapers are giving cur
rency to letter purporting to have been
written and signed by resident of this State,
| ct high authority upon legal questions, which
letter ls not only seditious libel upon Its face,
but is calculated to seduce many well-meaning
citizens into grave infraction of the laws.
The writer Of the letter complains therein
of two classes of persons, In connection with
| the recent Congressional election in this dis
trct; the one whom he terms the "whte vo-
ters,n and the other "negro voters" He
charges that the first class generally refrained
| from voting, and that the second class univer
sally voted, but voted against the writer.
The letter is not entirely explicit as to whether
it ls designed to subject the first class named
to any "pains and penalties" for 80 refraining
iron voting: but Its purpose In regard to the
second class is unmistakably set forth In the
following paragraph:
"I know that the negroes are banded to-