The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-01-23
AN Episcopal FALSE WITNESS.
On. World. Jan. $50

q
porant mob in Ahuaiulco, a ANAL town fy-
| ing some sixty miles from the city OF Qua
dalsjara, in Mexico. In this remote place,
| which is far from the civilization and the
| authority of the Mexican capital, thanks to
| the imperfect condition of the Internal
Communications OF Mexico, Mr.. Stephens
had for some six months employed himself
with considerable success in securing
Protestant congregation. The local priests,
of course, looked upon him very much as
the orthodox divines of Boston looked up
on Theodore Parker, treated him % badly
(they could not treat him worse) socially,
and did their best, no doubr, to propagate
belief among the people, that the man
meant no good and was an ''enemy to 80
ciety." That is a phrase which. like an
umbrella, is sort of certificate of res.
probability to those who use it and, like an
umbrella, can be hoisted with equal ease
by the just and by the unjust. So on the
I'd of March aforesaid number of the
common people of Ahualulco, inhamed
with piety and with pulque. the whiskey of
their country, attacked the house of the
missionary, and after forcing an entrance,
and finding him concealed in hay loft,
fell upon and brutally slew him. Two
friends who were with linn fled, and es.
capped to the mountains. The mob, scared
by what they had done, dispersed, every
man to his own place, and quiet reigned
with the dawn in Ahaalulco. The local
authorities were simple, dull persons, with
no more adequate force to meet such an
explosion than the selectmen of an average
village in New Hampshire, and for mo-
meut it seemed not unlikely that the muir
derers of Stephens would escape in Next
CO as uDscathed as an ordinary band OF
"regula ors'' or of "vigilauts" in one of
our own frontier settlements. BuIenly for
moment. Within forty eight hours the
State Government had despatched a body
Of . n01 fn lrlo ha off in
command began rigid inquest into the
affair by arrestipg every person in the viii
lsge upon whom any suspicion of com
plicity could be fixed. Among these were
two priests. The accused were brought to
trial. Against the priests no evidence
could be procured. and as even in Mexico
were Sisters of Charity are forbidden by
the laws to wear their distinctive dress as
religious order-priests cannot be con-
victed of capital crime without positive
testimony, the priests were necessarily re-
leased. But within few days of the per
petration of the crime no fewer than seven
teen persons had been convicted of partici-
patton In 1t, and sentenced, eight of them
to capital punishment, and the uipe others
to long terms OF imprisonment. OF the
sentenced to death, one wac under sixteen,
and another over seventy years of age. The
sentences of these two were commuted by
the Government to Imprisonment. The
other six, like Stokes and many more dis
tinguished criminals in our own country,
began to appeal aed petition in all direc-
tions against their doom. In every case
these resorts, one after another, proved fu-
tile, and about the lst of September last
five of the culprits we've publicly shot.
The sixth remains with the eleven others
sentenced or COMMITTED to imprison
under lock and key, where they all of them
have been since the month of March, 1874
When We consider all the circumstances of
this case and of the country III which this
case occurred, it must be admitted, we
think, that it would not be easy to find in
the recent criminal history of our own
country any example of q more prompt, pc
remptory and persistent pursuit of the au-
thor- of y detostable deed.
WHAT then can be thought of Bishop
Haven, the third ttrmite apostle of Presi-
dent Grant, who has deli berately written
1t down and printed it in book, published,
we are sorry to say, by the Harpers, that
cit is now impossible to hang one or to
punish him in Mexico, in any shape, for
numbering Protestant 2" Bishop Haven,
observe, wrote the book which contains
this statement after the events at Ahuuiul-
CO. 1t was published only the other day.
1t is entitled Mexico, Oar Next Door
Neighbor." 1t contains (pp. 446 449) what
purports to be a full, true and particular
account of the murder of MIR. Stephens the
in this account Bishop Haven deli bera,eiy
says ''the local government arrested two
priests aud nine of the people, but all were
liberated"
From whom did Bishop Haven obtain
his ''facts 7" That he does not intimate
very clearly. But there can be 10 doubt
as to the source from which alone a man
of conscience and of character writing on a
theme like this ought to. have taken hIs
facts. There was an American Minister
then in Mexico to whom Bishop Haven in
his book necessarily refers. The same
American Minister is in Mexico now. To
make a statement blackening the character
of Mexican justice in the most sweeping and
offensive way, without consulting the Off =
cial representative of his own country upon
its truth or falsehoOd, would have been
disgraceful in a bagman. 1t cannot be
pronounced less than CT ,minal in a bishop.
Had Bishop Haven investigated this tale of
Ahualoico officially he would have found
that at the very time when he was making
his inquiries the prisoners above describe
were in the hauds OF the law. Why did he
not do this Or is the commandment which
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