The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-06-12
TAE LAST JUDICIAL OUTRAGE.

The actions ana rulings Of JuAse W. B.
Woods, Of the United States Ci.cuirC Court,
during the trial of the Grant Parish Prison.
ers, have been of character to excite indig.
nation and shame. That at this period oil
our national existence judge Of United
States Court should permit his political
prciudIces to interfere in the administration
of justice to a number of human beings
who are on trial before him for otfenses
trumped up against them by political enc
mics, is, when we regard all the circnm-
stances of he case, simply atrocious.
Judge Woods knew perfectly we'll that
this whole prosecution was the offspring OF
political rancOr and spite. He knows TO-
day that the white citizens Of Grant parish
only acted in self-dcfense, and that they
did not move until they had exhausted
every remedy-until they had pettioned the
usurper Kellogg for relief, and warned the
negroes and their carpet-bag allies to desist
I from acts Of violence.
He knows too, for he has listened atten-
lively to the evidence, flat the prisoners
before HIM, if guilty Of anything, were gull
ty only Of banding together to protect their
families from outrage and themselves from
being murdered or driven from the parish
by mob Of Infatuated and misguided ne
groes.
He listened to the dreadful threats which
those negroes had uttered when they were
inaugurating the riot, and he, Of all men,
knows the capacity of the negro for fiend-
sh outrage; he heard of the atrocity com
mitted upon the dead child of Judge Rut-
land, and all the dreadful threats which
were uttered against the ladies of Grant
parish ana he must feel, in his soul, that
mon who would not move, at such time,
to defend their wives and daughters
from worse than death, and themselves
from murder, would be more contemplate
than the miserable wretrhes who have
bounded on this devilish conspiracy against
a few Of the men who signalized their man
hood by daring everything in defense of
what must be considered by every people
as the hottest cause for which a man can
take mp arms.
The unfagging zeal of Beckwith in this
matter, the persistence with which he has
followed up the case and the amount Of
personal bitterness he has exhibited, are at
once lamentab;e and despicable Secure in
tho partisanship Of the judge, he stopped
at nothing that was calculated to injure the
prisoners or to prejudice the jury and there
were few among the spectators who did not
finally come to the conclusion that the Dis
trict Attorney in this matter was gratifying
some private spite, was avenging some
fancied or real insult to himself
1t is di 1icult matter to decide which |
is the more worthy Of contempt, and upon
whom the indignation of the community |
should the more be visited, the malignant
and remorseless Beckwith, or the malevo-
lent and partizan Woods. VIII a packed
jury, and with such prosecuting attorney
and judge, it would be possible to convict
the most innocent member of the commu
nifty of the most heinous crime in the
Since the time when the learned but un-
Bacon, in sycophantic genu-
1exiOns-
I" Bent the pregnant h,nges Of the knee
That thrift might follow tawning.'
md committed the grossest outrages to gain
} smile from royalty. we know Of nothing
more disgraceful to the bench than the con-
iuct Of Judge Woods during the trial of
hese prisoners. Il is at once reflection
lpon tue importantly Of the judiciary, and
IN insult to the people of the whole country.
Let Durell and Woods be handed down to
together as men who have dragged
heir ermine in the sloughs Of politics, and
'rostituted themselves to gain the favor of
heir party.