New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-28
Communicated
The Burning of the Records at Port Win.
cent.


EDITOR REPUBLICANS: ...
In your issue of the nineteenth instant,
was an article in which you announced the
burning, at Port Vincent, of the records of
Livingston parish, together with the build
ing that contained them. You also make
therein, some comments on the matter, of
which comments l do not complain; but of
what you said in your article on the same
subject, in your issue of October 81, do
see something to complain.
10 this latter article you say, 1.-THE old
courthouse party" tsay those who preferred
Springfield to Port Vincent as the seat of
iusticel determined that the records should
do their antagonists no good; so they orga-
nized surprise party and burned the
records"
Now, as this is a direct and positive as
sertion, accusing many of an infamous
crime, it is due, both to them and to your
self, that you say what, or WIN. ndaoaa
you to make it.
Possibly your information reached you
from Port Vincent itself; for in little
paper there published, hints to that effect
were thrown out; but he who looks at the
| fact that an act of tie Legislature, at it's
last session Act No. 6, approved March 2s,
1879. provided that the records should 20
back to Springfield; and he who is acquaint-
ed with the fact that the records remained
that long at Port Vincent only by force of
an injunction which the Port Vincent party
| had sued out, and that the records were left
there intact by the "old courthouse party"
party. partly because it was apparently a
legal process that detained them, and part
ly in order that the Port Vincent party
| might have no plausible cause of COM
plaint-such one, l say, would be far
| more likely to conclude that the latter
party, in view of the almost certain de-
parture of the records as soon as the in
junction was tried, were the veritable in
cendiares.
For myself, have no doubt that the con-
tiagration was the work of an incendiary;
still l do not accuse either of the "high
| contending" parties themselves; and for
these reasons, say
There were in that now destroyed build
ing several bills of indictment against pre-
sumed criminals, some six or seven of
whom were accused Of murder, and the
rest of other Penitentiary crimes. The
| courthouse, sorcalled, was an isolated build
ing, in which nobody slept, except perhaps
occasionally some drunken man aceiden-
| tally left therein. 1t was distant some
forty or fifty yards, should supp ose, at the
least, from any other building, and was
such mere shell that any vigorous man
could, at more than one point, have kicked
| hole through its walls with the heel of his
boot; Or any one could have entered it
| almost noiselessly,. at almost any point
with the help of a CROW / ar, and at some
places l believe even With the help of
common spike nail.
What unprejudi ced person would not,
under these circumstances, suspect one or
more OF these presumed criminals, rather
than suspect persons, who, almost without
exception, had their land titles in the burnt
| offices; and who were, in most cases, with
out certified copies. Such. at least, is nv
way of thinking, and in that way of think
Aa6t 0hA iah lAoIh UdluR hIOu6.
To return, however, to the little paper"
before spoken Of, it is truly shocking to
see the malignity of those who dictate to
that poor little sheet, In the issue that
next followed the confagration, it not only
accuses OF the villainOus deed, the old
courthouse party, but fnAkes pointed allu-
sions to certain individuals of it; and in go
doing not only predicts, but evidently tries
to provoke against them the personal and
lswless vengeance of. the more rabid and
wicked menbers of the Port Vincent party.
For instance, here is the peroration of its
article:
There is not the slightest doubt but that
this midnight incendiary, the tool Of great
er villains Tor ''villiaps," as it is put down
planned by ADLER brains than those of which
he was possessor; and. if we mistake not, it
will require all the combined legal acumen
and dyed-in- the-wool villainy of the authors
and perpetrators of this crime, to shield
them from the vengeance of an enraged
community.
simultaneously, too, with the appearance
of this unholy invocation there was thrown
out to the public, from some source or other,
verbal or oral denuncration, designating
by name, as the instigatsrs if not actually
the perpetrators of the. coufagration, three
citizens of the Springfield side Of the parish.
Whether the authors of the libslous pIo
duction and the originators of the scandal
GUS report are the same indiy idnsls l can
not say, positively; but whether so or not
they all seem blind to the fact that these
men thus enounced own, in the aggregate,
as much land in the parish as any three
other men. and that they will loss In pro-
portion. Nay, one of them owns in this
parish as much as any other man, and he in
particular has been 90 little apprehensive
OF this calamity that in many cases he has
not even obtained certified copies Of his
deeds. a precaution which every man
should take whether it be to guard against
accident or fraud.
Luckily, however, for these three indi-
viduals, they have been much longer in
the parish, and are therein much better
known than their would-be assassins, and
consequently the envenomed shafts that
have thus been hurled at them nave fallen
harmless to the ground.
ONE OF THE "oLD COURTHOUSE
PARTY"