The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-12-06
PECULIARLY A. TEXAS CRAZE.


All things, now new under the sun, !
take unto themselves a period of fash
ion. Base ball has its run, the craze
having marched its army of followers
up hill with flying colors, while it now
begins to march down again. Things
unknown year or two ago are now
all the rage. A shallow pated Eng
lish fool, without form or beauty,
wore a sunflower as an ornament, and
in less than six months every fop in
the land had sunflewer in the lapel
of his coat. Colors have their rage;
and so do flowers. The chrysanthe-
mum craze has now two continents in
its grasp,while every pretty girl in Eu-
rope and America wears the jaunty
derby jacket. Even crimes have
their period of fashion, and
sometimes have been known to
assume the relation of a
craze. Incindiarism often has its
period of prevalence; robbery becomes,
at times thing of every day occur
renee. Even murder takes in periods
of prevalence, and the hand that strikes
to-day presents d FASHION to be
followed tomorrow. The most re-
cent craze in crime is fence cutting.
The first man who applied the nippers
to wire fence Is unknown, but
the thing, like magic, when once be-
gun, spread from one end of Texas to
the other. 1t is a Texas institution,
inaugurated IN 1883, and destined to
occupy the widest range while civil
authority is loosely exercised. 1t took
like fire takes an untrodden prairie in
| dry weather, and, no matter where it
began, it has swept with devastating
effect over Texas. AS long as pres
ent material lasts it will exist. A
legislature has been called to check
it, but with the same officers
that now control the execution of
law the legislature with all it's sta
tutes will be powerless. 1t is grown
into craze and will have its run. 1t
is getting just as natural now to cut
a barbed wire as it is to want to eat.
1t is only necessary for one to look at
a barbed wire for the craze to seize
him. A peaceable and lawabid1ng cit
izen, going down Pecan street, has his
fingers begin to work like a pair OF
nippers as he passes those stacks OF
wire at Firebaugh's. He would just
like to try cut, and were he in the
country, beside one Of those long string;
of wire fences, he would speedily be a
fence cutter. This craze is nothing
more nor less than the presence for &
season of Satan in the confines of Tex.
as. The spirit of the devil has taken
hold of people, and the fence is desc.
Grated around the homes of the dead
as well as around the ranges of The
long-horns. Why this one fence cut
ter, who was convicted in Travis
county, did not plead mental insanity
is not understood. The devil took
possession of him, and intuitively
he cut, just like the madman, who
thirsts for human blood, would braiI
a helpless babe. Fence-cutting is q
fearful crime. Some say it should be
expiated in the penitentiary under &
sentence of ten years; some say life
time, while the Waco Examiner urges
it be made capital offense. So
ciety, when is oYertaken with these
crazes, is weak, and therefore suscep
tible; communities that take on any
criminal craze is possessed of an mate
immortality that is fond of lawless-
ness. Two elements combine to create
morbid desire for crime-one being
possessed of the desire to commit
crime, the other to induce crime
This is the condition that has led te
the prevalence of fence-cutting. A
lawless element was ready to insult
law and order; another offered the in.
centive; and SO the nippers were started
by lawless men as a means of retalia.
tion on the lawless. The evil begun
it has spread until the present entire
military power of the United States
would be found inadequate to deal
with it. Wires are cut around the large
| pastures; they are cut around small
farms; they are cut around residence
enclosures, and grave yards, even, dc
not produce ghosts enough to frighten
"nesters" away. Fence cutting
was started, so we where
informed by the military
department of the state government
mostly to open ways to water, aud il
was announced that the end of the
drouth had put an end to fence cut
ting. This declaration was made the
subject of ridicule by lawless men
who thereupon redoubled their efforts
to destroy property. Rich and poor
the strong and the weak, men anC
widows and orphaned children are at
tackled alike, and even the winds thai
have played silently over graves
have been made lively will
the strike of the nippers and the tone
of the falling wires. Law is insult ed
and it is predicted it will be insulted
even after the legislature makes fence
cutting a felony. The officers who
fail to catch the law breaker now will
fail to hunt him down then. Thi;
lawless condition will prevail unti
the moral disease runs its course
Fortunately for its duration the evi
has become craze, and it will the
sooner reach its end through the alb