Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-10-21
s0UTHsRa FEU0s AND WHAT THEY
INDICATE,

has occurred at Knoxville, Tenn, result
ing in the violent and sudden death OF
three prominent citizens. 1t is not neces-
sary to rehearse the feud between the Ma
breys, O'Connor and others. which led to
the triple murder, though it is in order to
remark that the Mabreys were approved
assassins of the regular Southern type,
having very recently been acquitted (of
course by Southern jury) of the cold
blooded murder of two other men. Their
taking-off, therefore, is in no sense thing
to be regretted, and, indeed, it would be
well for the South If all of their kind
could be hunted down and killed like rats
in trap. But it is quite useless for South.
erners to insist upon the civilization OF
their people SO long as the custom of blood
feuds is maintained. For that custom is
SO essentially barbarous as to compel one
to go to the Indians for its parallel. We
may find the custom Furnishing in the Ital-
ian Republics and petty principalities OF
the fourte enth and fifteenth centuries. The
Italians, however, were wiser in their gen.
Grafton than the Southerners. They EN-.
ployed braves or professional assassins,
who, "for consideration" would put
anybody out of the way in neat and
this practice that there was a regular
dumping place for the corpses or
the banks of the Tiber. at Rome.
And when Cesar Borgia caused his
brother TO be murdered, a fisherman
who had seen the body flung into the
river, on being asked why he had not
notified the authorities, replied that he
had seen hundred corpses thrown into
the river from that place, and he had too
much regard for his own throat to say
anything. at the South, however, those
who are at feud think it necessary to do
their own fighting, and as they are prone
to use shotguns loaded with buckshot it
does not take long to exterminate family.
But this is very barbarous and savage
work. 1t lis traceable to two thoroughly un.
civilized traits viz, an exaggerated no.
ton of personal honor and insufficient re-
gard for human life. As civilization
progresses, the self-conceit which is really
the explanation of what is called ga pune.
"tilious sense of honor, is cleared away.
Men learn, as their intellectual faculties ex-
pand, and as their knowledge increases,
that the individual must depend for re-
spect and esteem upon conduct, and not
upon his own fanciful idea of his own i'm
portance. The respect for human life also
rises with civilization. Men come to
perceive that there are very few offences
which can merit death, and that when these
offenses are committed the law, and not the
individual, must be trusted to exact the
penalty. But at the South we see
that even the prominent men, the
better educated men, still act as
though they possessed no govern
ment; still disgrace their communities by
brutal and bloody street fights; still cher
ish their savage feuds, as though they were
wild Indians. And the Southern press does
not characterize these shameful practices
as they deserve. 1t is obliged to soften
down the horrors of these tragedies to
put out of sight the dreadful sfiiiction en-.
tailed upon wives and daughters and
mothers and sisters by the detestable
"code :" to speak of brutalities which
would disgrace tribe of Apaches as though
they were the fit and proper acts of Chris.
tian gentlemen to euphemize murders as
"affrays;" to call assassinations en-
counters ;" to back up, excuse, condone,
defend, justify, palliate, the most abomina-
BILE and deplorable outrages and crimes that
have ever prevented the progress of COM
munity or given it bad name all over the
civilized world. 1t is in vain that these
explanations are offered, however. The
innate and controlling barbarism even of
the so called best society of the South is
demonstrated beyond all controversy by
these horrible deeds and the customs which
lead to them.