Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1874-08-11
TEXAS.
The Interior OF n PrIsOn-A White
woman Imprisoned win Ne
grOes.
From Our own Correspondent

From Our Own Cerrespondentl
SHERMAN, TEXAS, July 30, 1874
Before l forget, should tell perhaps oi
the woes of a hApless woman incaTcera-
ted in Marshall. Her name is Barnes.
! By birth New Yorker, she was reared
/ and thoroughly educated in north Ire.
land. While yet young, she married an
! Irish gentleman, then so esteemed.
| Whisky iDtery ened, and the gentleman
became a sOt, wanGeTer and adveutuTer.
| The faithful wife adhered TO the wreck,
and through fourteen years followed the
drunken wretch from one to another
city, often reduced to the utmost straits
She was music-teacher, and now and
then an actress, and again a pretty
school-marm. Barnes sank lower aud
lower, until thoroughly brutalized by
whisky, he was given bread by her toll,
while she managed boardiughouse-
shanty for labOrers on a Texan railway.
Barnes was brought home drunk one
day by brawny negro. She was alone
in the little cabin, and the negro, leav-
ing the senseless, helpless husbsnd on
the floor, assailed the woman, demand
ing money. She remembers desperate
struggle, that she was knocked down,
that when she recovered her senses she
was blind, and staggering about, fell
in pool of blood. A crowd
was gathered, her husbands head
had been severed from his body.
She was accused of the murder and con
signed, more than six months ago, to q
felon's cell. Negroes, men and women,
are occupants of the same foul, filthy
apartment. She has listened to Ian
gusge so obscene and witnessed Incl
dents so shocking that she deems herself
insane at times, even discEediting her
own senses. Having neither money nor
friends, she can employ no counsel. The
yOnug gentleman assigned the duty of
defending her has never seen her save
in the courtroom. The negro who muT-
dered her husband and demanded her
money or life, and almost slew her when
she failed to give, is a potent black poll
tieian, and has never been arrested.
The sheriff Of Harrison county is an adj
venturer from the east, omnipOteut
among the ssvsges that reign without
restraint, havins, a majority of two to
one in the county. The civil rights bill,
you will observe, il in full blast in the
prisons Of Texas ip which negroes and
carpetbaggers reign, Here white women
are incsrcerated with blsck, men and wO-
men in the same foul den of infamy and
of Marshall have nothing to do with the
knRves governing the county, plunder-
ing il remorselessiy and managing its
violations of law. They know nothing
Of the PRISONS inmates, and only two
decent white people have visited this
hapless woman. From one of these
good samaritans / have the facts here
recited. The woman's friends aud
family in New York should intervene in
her behalf, and the worlds opinion
should cOnsign to lasting infamy these
remorseless villains here or elsewhere
who are degraded enough in their own
eyes to govern a sOhite, through the UOtes
ofG black race.
AND THEIR RADICAL RULERS.
These Texans don't bear the yoke
patiently. They quietly notify the ne
groes' leaders that itany election be not
fairly held that these leaders viii rot |
live comfortably very many hours, and |
the thieves, eoncediDg the justice of the |
demand, suffered whites to vote at the /
last election. No claim against the /
county is paid till it goes, as once hap /
pened in Memphis, through the hands /.
ofthe outside agents Of the office-hOldeTs. /
The people are terribly taxed and robbed /
in Radically governed counties and |
towns, and are impatient enough. /
The yoke will be thrown of,
when at last, as in Louisiana, it be-
comes utterly intolerable, with fearful /
violence.
1t costs seven dollars and fifty cents to (
transfer cotton bale by rail from this I
place to Galveston. Two dollars and
half of this sum would be sved if the /.
people had direct access through Jeffer- /
son and Camden, and Pine Bluff to |
Memphis, and then, too, they would 4
have access to the best cotton and gro
Gerry market in the United States. The /
best cotton and corn have seen during |
the year grows on hed river plantations |
ten or twelve miles from Bonham. l