Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1879-03-21

The recent murder of Colonel Robert A.
Aston, Of Georgia, illustrates forcibly the
insecurity Of life in the Southern States.
Colonel Aston was a Democrat, and had
served in the rebel army with distinction.
He was last year elected to the Georgia
legislature, and as chairman of the commit
tee on the penitentiary he made inquiries
which convinced him that the system OF
letting out convict labor established BY the
State laws, and administered by the State
officials, was vicious, ard marked by hideous
abuses. Our readers will perhaps remember
a recent description of the system, in our
columns, the facts being drawn from re-
port made by Col. Aston. The State of
Georgia has no State prison. The conviets,
mostly negroes, are hired out to contractors,
who are required by the terms of their con-
tracts to feed, clothe and guard them, and
are permitted to move them from place to
place within the State. and to exact from
them such amount and kind of work as they
choose. The prison camps in various parts
Of the State were found 70 be the scenes Of
shocking cruelties. The convicts were
oyerworked, half starved, punished with
terrible severity, and scrimped in clothing,
shelter and medical attendance. In con-
sequence of their inhuman treatment the
death rate among these prisoners was
E.;-k,C,1 ToInpal A1-tNp,- uhiah
exposed without reserve the barbarity OF the
system and the inhuman cruelties praeticed
under it, made a great sensation, its pungent
facts and conclusions being reproduced IN
most of the newspapers of the country. The
persons who profted by the abuses he ex-
posed, Of course attacked him with fury, and
his friends begged him to desist from his
purpose of reforming the system. Too many
powerful and unscrupulOus men, they said.
were interested in maintaining it, and it
was dangerous for him to attempt radical
reform. But he was resOlute, and reported
and advocated bill providing for the nee
essary reforms. lie was at once denounced
as traitor and radical by nearly all the
Democratic papers Of the State.
United States Senator Gordon was one of
those who had prOfted by the wretched sys-
tenn. He hell lease of a large number of
conyicts, whose services he let to sub-con-
tractors. Moved by humanity or BY regard
for his reputation, he put his lease into the
hands of Colonel Aston, with authority to
dispose Of it to the most humane and respon-
sible man he could find willing to take it.
One Cox, a prominent politician OF De halb
county, insolently demanded that the lease
should be sold to a partncr Of his, with
threat that he would kill Colonel Aston if
he refused. Aston paid no heed to this
threat, and sold the lease to another man.
Cox on hearing Of this went to seek Colonel
Aston at the State Capitol N Atlanta,
found him in the treasurers othce, and
there, in the presence of several State
officers, shot him dead, Aston drawing his
own pistol in self-defence, and wounding
Cox, but not mOrtally.
Colonel Aston came of noted dueIling
family, of which it i said that not male
member ior several generations has died
natural death. lie was himself not vain of
this flmily trait, and used to say that it was
his ambition to refute the tradition that an
Aston must always "die in his boots" He
seems to have been a man of honorable and
manly instincts; and moved by sincere
desire to right foul wrongs AMI to remove
blot from the name of his State. His fate
will be a warning to those who undertake
reforms in the interest of humanity in
Georgia.