The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-09-18
, The Chisholm Outrage.

or of fiction furnish anything as intense
ly and horribly dramatic as the story of
Mrs. Chisholm, given in another COL.
umn. Whether examined as \ whole
or in detail, il stands alone in its Aorr;-
BILE and unequaled interest. q
The narration commences easilv. and
rises smoothly and with out effort to its
thrilling climax. The wife and mother
was at home; the h'asband abroad on
business. There Is little touch here
which reveals tho quiet home life; it is
gentle prelut.e to the stormy instru-
mentation which is so soon to follow.
There is the glimpse Of the quiet home,
as yet unbrOken, and then the theme
becomes a little disturbed. She has
just come in from some visits to her
neighbors, and she has heard some ru-
raors of trouble. And the theme be-
comes still more menaoing as she looks
through her windows and sees strange
men in unusual numbers lounging by,
or lowering about, the while glancing
at the house with angry looks And
now the gentle prelude has given way
to strains, as yet not warlike, but full Of
menace, of portentous threatenings. 1t
is something like the moaning Of the
winds beneath . broken sky, betoken>
AAs5 Oh esRRAO0SAAAE, cSOA
The scene gradually shifts from the
quiet home through scenes of increas-
ing turbulence to the county iail. Dur
ing this change the yard becomes filled
with scowling men; they throng the
halls and stairways of the house, they
brandish their guns; and thus the scene
grows stormier and stormier until it
opens in full strength IN the Jail build
ing. Here. at. once, the menaces, the
angry portents, begin to hatch into re:
aity. The strains become clamorous,
become filed with direst passions and
fiercest actions. The father, daughter,
and . son have been hurried into the
jail and locked up in one of the cells to
preserve them from the fury of the
breaking storm. Following a little
later. the mother attempts to reach her
husband and children. The stairway
up which she must go is thronged with
infuriate fends, through whom she
cleaves her way with desperate energy.
At the top Is the cell she labors for; and
against its door men are hewing with
axes. Other men, or demons, rather,
place the muzzles of their guns within
the CRATES of the wall, and fire at ran
dom upon the defenseless trio within.
And just here tasre is pathetic inter-
lude; she who has fought like an en-
ragged tigresss to reach her attacked
young is overpowered, and sinks for an
instant intr the woman, the wife. the
mother. With piteous accents she ap-
peals to the fends about her, and de-
manC4 OF them in the saored name Of
husbands and fathers that they spare
her husband and her children. It is
vain! Aswell the writhing fawn may
Claim mercy from the wolf whose hum
ygry fangs are already redeemed with
its blood; and. seeing this. she at once
becomes q asupreme embodiment of res
olution and defiance. She hears a cry
from her husband, and she fears for q
moment that his soul has quailef be-
fore the horrors which confront him..
What ordinary nature at such . mo-
ment would stop to think whether cry
uttered under such circumstances was
zone of cowardly apprehensionas5 She
With the air full of Kissing death, she
rose to the grandeur of hoping that her
husband. defenseless, at bay, face to
face with certain death, should meet
his doom without q culver of weakness
or q cry of mercy to the bloody hell
hounds who were shooting him to
She gains entrance to- his cell; and
johnnie is dead. His clothing is on
fire, and dipping her hand IN has soelling
blood she ersinQstishes the burnisg mass.
Was there ever anything more fearfully
dramatic than this picture of mother
bending over her SON and using his life
blood to save him from mutilationP
And even here, with a savage hell
rearing about, and scorching them with
its flames. the sister finds space to con-
vey, and.the mother to hear, the sweet
assurance that Johnnie had died with
out pain. It'may be supposed that, for
. brief second, the motherly heart
thrilled with sad, albeit supreme, satis-
faction at the thought that her boy had
passed away without the agony and tor
ture of q lingering death. 1t may be
supposed that q woman who, among
the roar of guns, the shouts of assas-.
sins, and the knowledge that she stood
in the actual presence of death, had
leisure to fear that her husband might
be- weakening before his murderers;
who. amidst. the. storm of buckshot,
could stoop to wet, out with his blood
the smoking garments of her boy; who
could. in the midst of such indescriba-
BILE horrors, gain q, moment in whichto
entertain, the: comforting Thought that
he died without pain; it may be sup
posed that such q womans senveloped in
the smoke Of belching guns and in the
presence of the grandest catastrophes.
found even amoment as she kAzed into
the dead face for ., swift retrospective
glance which took in the travail of his
birth, his beautiful infancy. and the
swelling hopes which accompanied him
in his approach to manhood -
And again the scene changes. Meet
ing unexpected resistance in their ef-
forts at murder, the cowardly hyenas
skunk down the stairway, and resolved
upon fire as safer means of Sbutchery.
The husband, wife and daughter follow
down the stairway, preferring to face
the hail of .buckshot rather than to re-
main and chance the horrors of fire.
Again 'another dramatic incident "A
gun is thrust full at the breast of CHS
holm, when the daughter fings her
arms about her fathers neck, and in
terposes her body before the muzzie Of
the assxssip'ss gun. He fires all the
Same. fninga her body with pellets,
g And her arm, was shattered" seFs the
mother, after enumerating the Wounds, /
...for 1 heard. the rattle Of the bones
when I red up the wound with my
handkerchief. Her face. was streaming
with blood. !" A little later, 4 the
daughter, with her tace streaming with
blood. her arm shattered 50 that the
bones ratified, and uohera vounds all
over her personsgu6 to thssdoor to |
plead foe. belpp faI ker dying. father;
IS and them" says the mother. g some
one shot her in the lo6lk andshe rsh
hack and told ma of ite3, zAhs schival-.i