Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-05-31
MYTH OR HORROR
An Answer from Arkansas to a Fool
Editorial Concerning the Alleged
Outrage on the Rev. Mr.. Todd
in that State.

To THE EDITOR OF THE New YORK
HERALD: For many years we have
read your valuable paper, but never
with such pain and Notifying sur
prise as VIXEN reading your issue of
the 18th inst, under the heading of
Look Hersl' Well, sir, we have
looked, and looked with unfeigned
amazement. We have always accorded
YOU the fair need of an honest, Just
and brave man. Is it in keeping with
this character to PREJUDICE without
the facts, or, as the law hath it, the
whole truth and nothing but the
TRUTH Is it in keeping with this
character TO hurl the epithet OF
"Brinkley brutes" at the devoted
heads Of unoffending citizens innocent
Of crime as distorted and imagined BY
ignorance or design of your author
ship? We do not hold the people at
large in your section responsible for
the brutal and unnatural immolation
Of an innocent child By its unnatural
father, whether fer religion or other
motive nor when the mobs of your
cities burn, kill and destroy do we cry
The brutes,' The Pittsburg pi-
rates nor 1.-The Boston brutes." You
have brave men and noble women.
and, for political purposes, we do not
strive to decry or annoy them with
unprincipled missionaries of mischief
The Word of God has been preach
ed TO both black and white in this
State fully. freely and without hin
drance.
The killing Of VIM. Todd at Brink.
ley-if killing it can be called. and
which | candidly deny-had no con-
nection with politics OF religion what
ever.
Thepeople remoret than thai
the colored people should be taught,
and thoroughly taught, the Word OF
the living God, and by the evidence
adduced in the %cor0ner's Jury botI
Todd and Pollard are upon the record
as having been universally we'll treated
THE ARREST OF TODD AND POLLARD
The whole thing is in the smallest
nutshell, and is thus One Kelly, late
Of Minnesota, is Marshal of Brinkley
and is a certified detective. He re.
ceived a description of a Methods
preacher who had murdered two wive.
and escaped from the State of Mis-
sour and offering a reward of $l50l
Tor his apprehension. Marshal Kelly
having IN his mind the customs o
ministers OF the gospel in your Ian,
OF christian charity and indulgence
noticed their manners and straight
tordward dealings in the broad light 0
the day, thought that these men
Pollard and Todd, did not G as wa
customary, or without suspicion
Sinking around mostly AT NIGHT
besides being both white mo,
and staying exclusively among tb'
negroes. Marshal Kelly quietly ar
rested them after consultation wifi
good citizens, not among a crowd
not in the presence Of drunken mer
but in the presence of their ow
friends, without all Of the side scene.
martyr like, described by Polar,
The dark alley is a myth, and at th
} yard gate of Kelly Todd ran, thu
fixing the already too we'll -grounde
suspicion Of the marshal he W;
halted, fred at and received a sligl
flesh wound, pronounced by ever
medical expert not in the sliphte,
manner fatal. Thinking thai On
prisoner had so cunninSly escape,
s was 1t not natural TO endeayor I
make safe the other, suspicion beiu
2 sharpened by the mans flight
4 Scarcely ten minutes had passed whS
Q Todd returned and gave himself n
/. When these men were searched +,
Q scars, and the description not beir