Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1884-07-04

The Salt Fork Killing.
Some ignorant and malicious sctibbler.
desiring If possible to stir up a feeling
between the stockmen and the farmers.
wrote the article below for the Hazel
ton Express, and that paper published
the mis- statement and exaggerations.
willingly. Those who read the correct
account In the INDEX can easily detect
the errors I'm the article.
Communication In the Haaselson Express
a short time since our ent ire county
and her neighbors were shocked at the
bank robbery and murders at Medicine
Lodge and at the summary justice met
ed out to the murderers at the hands of
a mob, and yet we all said nothing more
than justice was done. The murdered
men were rich, one owning immense
herds Of cattle. How different, when
two poor men, one of them unarmed.
foully murdered and their bodies man.
gled by five cOwardly brutes that are a
disgrace to the name of COWBOYS. But
as damnable as was the murder, the ac-
count given of the affair by the Medi-
cine Lodge Cresset, was more shameful.
UNFOLDING the act and praising the MUIR
ders.
Mr. Watt and his oldest son-the
murdered men-have been for some
time farming, or at least trying to do
so, all the time greatly annoyed by the
destruction of their crops and properly
by the cattle and their owners, and
when that immense tract of government
land was fenced, they were shut in ana
had to cut the wires to get out. A few
days before the murder Mr.. Watt and
his son were in town and tried TO
get surveyor to go out with him and
find out what land he did occupy sta T.
ing that if he could not live there quiet
ly and without trouble he would leave.
Mr.. Watt and his son were about
three hundred yards apart when MUIR
dered, and Mr.. Watt, unarmed, had
turned out of the road and was driving
rapidly for piece of timber, and yet
the five towards who did the dirty
work claim it was in self defence,
when they were upon horseback, and
the two men in wagons.
How many Of the cowboys of this
part of the country think that five of
you would have tn shoot each of two
men three or five times, crush their
skulls until their brains exuded, kill one
horse, break up their wagons and cut
thir harness, in order to talk to them
about cutting a fence, and then let the
bodies remain where they were for their
children to find.
Mr.. Watt was known as a quiet and
orderly man and had endured a great
amount of abuse from the time he first
settled upon his place. He leaves a
large family of little children with nei-
ther father nor mother. Do we do
wrong if we feel little indignant and
reply?
The Express comments on the killing
as follows in its issue of the 18th inst:
I'VE made mention in our last issue
Of the murder of Mr.. 7. X. Watt and
son which took place the 18th ult., some
six or eight miles west from Kiowa.
1t appears that Mr.. Watt and family
had settled upon a claim that was en-
closed by fence built by cattle men,
for the purpose of pasturing their herds,
said pasture having gates at different
places for egress. On account of these
gates being left open these two men
were murdered, and the murderers (be-
ing five to two) claim they did what
they did in self defence. We can't see
the justice of the plea, when five mount.
ed and well armed men, kill and mangle
the bodies of two unarmed men whose
only offence was that of leaving the gates
open leading into this pasture. We will
admit that their act in leaving the gates
open was an aggravating one, yet did
the aggravatiOn merit the punishment
received? Our statutes make proyis-
ions for the punishment of crime, but
where crime of the nature before us is
committed we are inclined to Justify
the mode of applying the law, that our
sister townsmen made use of i'm the
recent murder case at Medicine Lodge.
The sooner the country is rid of such
men, the sooner will our settlers be
safe from the attacks from outlaws. at
their homes and on the highways"