Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-01-01
Circumstances Alter Cases.

.,
This trite saying is strilzingly illustrated
in the difference in The conduct OF the press,
hostile to the South, in the cases in which
a negro kills q white man, and a white man
kills negro. This is forcibly presented
in the following from the Richmond Dis
patch
AS Yazoo, on Christmas-eve, five white
men were shot down by.a party of negroes.
The fact was duly reported by telegraph,
together with conclusive evidence that the
assault upon the whites was -blooded
ill-feellng, unless it arose from commend
able effort on the part of one of the whites
who were killed to keep the peace between
two negroes. Yet for the most part the
Stalwart organs have passed the matter by
simply as the subject Of a news item, and
one of the most infamous outrages that have
ever occurred in this country has been made
notable by an almost entire absence of edi-
torial comment When the people Of Dan
vile, smarting under the grossess indignl-
ties, resisted an assault. which, had it not
been resisted, might have resulted IN tie
sacking of the town, and in so doing killed
and wounded seven negroes, tho editorial
columns Of th eStalwart papers were render
led lurid with bloody-shirt articles, and
some of the more rabid editors threatened
| the South with armed Federal Intervention.
T1ex =.
dyunder the same circumstances might have
occurred in any community, North o.
South, and which was melted by emissaries
of their own party, evidences of an entir'
subversion of law, both State and Federal,
and a justification in the most high-hande(
Federal usurpabinn, They claimed tina
the negroes that were killed were poltioa
martyrs, and they wept in sack-cloth AM
ashes over their woes. However, in th,
case of the Yazoo tragedy, where, in {;
time void of excitement. some of the mos
respectable citizens Of the place were muir
dered, we fail to discover the slightest sug
gestion from Stalwart source that the af
fair was an outrage, or that it calls for ever
the mildest condemnation. On the contra
ry, one Of our esteemed contemporaries of
the Radical stripe in q brutal effort to be
witty congfatqlatss the country that the
negro has learned to be handy with chs
pistol. Yet after all there is some conso
lation in this discrimination. 1t is an evil
dc ncG Of Gtaluyart daSnerat,on Nothiu
short OF a desperate cause would develop
such despicabls weakness. In this posi-
ton We are sustained by the following sig.
nifcant paragraph from the Boston Globe.
Give unoffending white nen were sho
down by a party of negroes. OF course
neither politics nor race prejudice had any
thing to do with it. But suppose the white
men had killed the negroes instead of re-
framing from shooting because the streets
were full of people. We can readily i'm
agine what the Republican papers in this
vacinity would have said about it. They
would have had ne rebellion started be-
fore night, ane would have issued frantic
appeal to our best people &c sage the coun-
try in 1884 by voting the Republican tick
et.''
/ In other words, it is anything to save
"the grand OLD party" tho violation of
truth justice, and the laws cf humanity
not excepted.
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