Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-08-27
THE MURDERS AT TRENTON.

A feeling of horror spread throughout
the city yesterday when the LEDGER ap-
peared announcing that band OF
masked villains Took by force sixteen
unfortunate negro prisoners out of the
Trenton jail yesterday morning and
murdered them in Geld blood. There
does not seem to be single paliatiug
circumstance connected with the fright
full crime and wholesale slaughter. So
frightful and bloody an outrage has
never before disgraced the history Of the
old Volunteer State, and the best men
in the State bow their heads in shame at
the disgrace cast upon them by one hum
dred masked and armed white assassins
in Carroll county. In Tennessee law is
in force in every county, the courts are
organized and all violators OF law can
be punished according to their deserts.
Let it be admitted for the sake OF argu'
ment that these sixteen negroes had
made threats against the white people,
had organized military company and
had fred upon two white men. The ne
groes we're arrested and were committed
to the Jail of Trenton for safe-keeplng
to answer before the law for any otfenses
they may have committed. There is no
apology for resorting to masks and
transformations at the dead OF night
in Tennessee. The origin of the troubles
was that two low down white men at
tended negro barbecue and purchased
half of a barbeeued shoat, which they
ate and refused to pay for. This in
ceused the negroes, and rumors OF arm
ing drilling, threats, etc.. soon spread
abroad. Both whites and blacks became
anprehensive of each other, and so the
oot boiled up TO an explosion point.
Then the sixteen negroes were arrested
and committed; armed and masked men
twice interrupted the guard who were
conveying the prisoners to the Trenton
iaiI from Pickettville, Gibson county.
These masked villains were driven of by
the guards and disappeared IN the
woods. Yesterday morning one hundred
masked men overpowered the Sheriff and
taller (bolh of whom should have died at
their posts rather than have surrendered
their prisoners to slaughter) and took
out the sixteen negroes, tied them IN
twos and marched them out of town.
Six Of the uDfortunates were ordered to
run, and while SO doing we're brutally
hot down. The other ten we're carried
10 the Forked Deer river bottom and
murdered in cold blood. Wewere about
to state that modern history has no par
.allel for this inhuman, bloody and cow
ardly act, but on rehection'we Ind our
selves mistaken. The French Revolution
presented parallel case during the
Reign Of Terror, when three hundred
assassins visited the prisons ofPsris and
slaughtered the unfortunate men andwo-
men confined therein. Billand-Verennes,
Maillard, Sanierre and others led the
meb to the prisons Of the Abbaye, Bice-
tere, La Salpetre, the Conciergerie, the
Chatelet, La Force and other places
where hundreds of the best in the land
we're confined on political charges, and
m ordered them in cold blood, the Satur-
MALTA of Hell lasting Eve days. The
LEDGER is white mans paper, btliev-
ing in the supremacy Of the white race,
hut no civilized man who has spark Of
humanity in his bosom can do anything
else but denounce the cowardly murders
committed BY the masked mob at Tren-
ton. "Thou shalt do no murder is one
of the commandments Of the good book.
Brave men need no masks, nor do they
seek under cover Of darkness to slaugh-
Ter their felloW-men. This masking and
numbering has disgraced kentucky, and
today Tennessee stands disgraced be-
fore the civilized world It is to be
boped that the Governor and the county
Authorities, nay, all the authorities IN
the State, win not spare either money or
labor 70 bring these numbering wreiches
70 the bar Of justice. Humanity de-
mands It, and society must meet the
lame. Let the assassiDs be apprebended
and punished in accordance with the
Of their crimes.