New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-12-05
A SHOCKING SPECTACLE,

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The P;cayune amuses itself with the
idea that the REPUBLICAN, should attach
any importance to the fragrant vagaries Of
the bulldozers of Ouachita. 1t even dubs
the REPUBLICAN the organ of the poor vic
Tins of such brutality. We neither com.
plain of nor except to such position.
We are the advocates of the Southern
people. We do deny that they would
permit such deeds or that they sanction
the ribaldry Of the press which ridicules
the misery ard defames the character of
the helpless and unfortunate. We intend
that this horrible shame shall be blazoned
abroad. It can neither be laughed nor
lied out of court. It shall not be ig-
nored in making up the case of intimida-
ton by the brutal element which is alone
responsible for the crime. It is spectre
which shall not "down" at the bidding of
any partisan who breads its aspect. The
mutilsted limbs of Twitchell, and the
wounded person of the woman Pinkston
are of the class of those ugly facts that
sometimes get before jury in the &C.
cidents of trial Even after the court
may have ruled that the facts are not
legally before the jury, they can not be
expunged from the memory and convic-
tons Of the jurymen. 1t sometimes hap
pens that ugly facts obtrude themselves
in the same manner upon public opinion.
Rev. Mr., Butler, clergyman Of
New York testifes to the follow
ing facts: When the republican gov
eminent of President Jnarez executed
the law confscating the property of
of the established church in Mexico it
became necessary to cut away portions of
converts and monasteries for streets,
Private purchasers of the secularized prop
erty did the same thing in the alteration
and adaptation of the buildings. 1t so
happened that in some of these works |
there were crypts, apparently intended as
places Of punishment from ecclesiastical
In these were sometimes found
human skeletons. In one of them was q
sight Of peculiar horror. A man, woman
and an infant seemed to have been
in one Of these cavities and suf- |
located by pouring lime mortar upon
hem. This terrible device for suppress
ing the evidence of decomposition pro-
vided the means of perpetuating the proof
The workmen picked away the solid
mortar from the persons of these victims,
md the bodies were found perfectly pre-
served by the process. The awful agony
experienced and expressed by these poor
Tretches was obvious. The desperation
# the man who strained upward to pre-
erve respiration, the despairing look of
he woman upon her perishing infant, all
we're there fled and stereotyped by death.
Tow a description by types or speech
ould have given no idea of the crime at.
ributed to those who had inflicted such
hooking punishment. The government
f Mexico therefore placed these num-
1ies upon public exhibition, SO that there
J not, perhaps, an adult in the city who
as not looked upon them. Some such
slics have been brought from Mexico to
be United States, and everywhere they are
eemed to furnish indisputable evidence Of
degree Of cruelty which would not
Q realized upon oral testimony, but
hich, as in the mute agony OF Lucfetia
r Philomela, or Of Virginia, no human
carts can resist. The shocking and
aameful spectacles exhumed and exposed
y the explorations of the Returning
oard will be witnessed and told by thou
.nds, and however ridiculed or denied
y partisans will fix the opinions Of the
umane and the just throughout the
orld. No one can believe that free will
,ffrage can exist where such crimes are
erpetrated or tolerated.