The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1877-06-21
The MolIie NyaguIres.

lue MOlIle NhRuIreS'
There are ten criminals now lying
under sentence Of death in the mining
region OF Pennsylvania who have seen
the dawn Of their last day on earth, nm
less nature or their own hands have inter.
fered to save them from the gallows.
To-day six arc to be hanged At Pottsyille
and four at Mauch Chunk. The Balti.
more American ssys: "They have been
convicted OF participation in the mon.
stroua atrocities Of the Mollie Mnguires,
the secret organization which for years
set all law at defiance in the coal district,
and to whose doors more than score oI
murders can be traced. 1t is more than
fifteen years since they commenced to
slay the mining overseers and othet men
upon whom tue fatal verdict OF the
Order had been passed. Their victims
were shot down in the lonely defiles Of
the mountains, or occasionally their
homes were fired at night, and as they
issned forth they were met by volley
Of bullets. It may seem strange that for
10 long time the assassins escaped, but
it must he remembered that the Mollie
Maguires were thoroughly organized
throughout the whole Of the mining
country. II victim was selected in II
certain locality his execuIioners were
summoned from the next district to do the
bloody deed, and their operations were so
secret that detection was extraordinary
difficult. Perplexity and danger sur
rounded every effort Of the ordinary Off.
GERS Of the law to track them down. They
found sympathy and help on every side.
II pursuit was made by force which the
MoIlics did not dare to openly resist it
was an easy matter TO hide the criminals
away in the labyrinthean recesses Of the
mines until the affair had blown over
To their iellow.workmen they were the
instruments for executing Vengeance on
those they deemed their oppressors, and
they met with friends everywhere. 1t
was not until the leading coal corpora.
tions organized body Of sCOu.s, police
and detectives and procured commissions
for them from the State that anything eI-
fective was done towards making an ex.
ample OF the miscrcantS. This force dill.
gently pursued its duties. Some Of its
members successfully undertook the per.
ilous task Of assoCiatinG As spies with the
Mollie Magures, and in their hNunts
collecting evidence against them. Soon
they discovered testimony on which ar
rests could be made, and then the
criminals we're hunted out and captured.
The history OF this labor, il fully written,
would be full Of romantic incidents, equal
to anything that can be found in the pages
Of fiction.
The trials Of the men who are to be
hanged to-day commenced nearly year
ago. Every effort has been made to save
them from their doom. Test cases we're
carried up 10 the Supreme Court on tech.
nical issues after conviction had been
found in the lower tribunals, but each
attemp! TO procure reversal Of the yer.
dict resulted only in failure. The Court
Of Pardons was rcsorted 10, but it also
refused to interfere with the processes OF
justice, and the last hope for their lives
has been exhausted. Stern az may seem
the necessity for intiCting upon them the
fnal punishment known to the law, II
nevertheless exists. Their deeds were
utterly without extennation, save in that
spirit which recognizes bloodshed as Just
reprisal for imaginary wrongs. BY their
violence they paralyEed the very indns.
try upon which they prOieSsed to depend,
and helped 10 make the mining districts
scenes OF murder and rutEiauism. The
catalogue Of their crimes, as shown by
the evidence produced against them on
their trials, contains the names OF worthy
and respectable men who we're killed
simply because they were obnoxious to
the sanguiaary order. It seems to have
had no object except that Of murder. Its
members were outlaws whose hand was
against every man and every mans hand
against them. They considered 1t noble
to take human life, and one who had
murdered foe OF the order was distin-
guished above those Of his fellows whose
hands were not stained with blood"