Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1884-05-16
THE soRRowING CITY.

HAZELTON EXPRESS: No one knows
how perfectly applicable the caption of
this article is to Medicine Lodge, Kan
sas, except he has been there and wit
messed what we did on both occasions,
during the last week.
May 1st dawned on as sad and sorrow-
full a community as was ever seen in the
state of Kansas. In quiet home, neat
and tasty, lay the body of a noble, res
pected man, George Geppert, cold in
death. A little way off lay the father
of nine living children, all young, i'm the
awful agony of death, from a mortal
wound made by an assassins' bullet.
Death was fast accomplishing its work,
step by step, nearer and nearer it came,
and at ii o'clock a. m. all was over.
Then, in yonder station house, or lock
up, lay in pairs, four dead bodies, all
cold and rigid in death. No shout could
awake them, they were dead. When
alive they were young, strong and pow
erful men.
Reader, pause for one moment, and
immagine how every one must have
felt. Six dead men in quiet town of
less than one thousand inhabitants |!
Two leading citizens, well known, high.
ly respected, even beloved by many,
both husbands and fathers. both sober,
intelligent, generous, affable, benevo-
lent men. One dead, the other in the
agonies of death, and before noon, life
less.
This was the work of the assassins.
The four other bodies in yonder jail are
there by the verdict of an outraged COM
munity. What could they do other than
what they did do? What could any
community do under such circumstance
es? We say community, not mob, or
drunken row, no, no. 4 community
of peaceable, order-lOving people, with
hearts too full for utterance. They
spoke in whisper. 1t was an awful
calm. Home was threatened, life un-
safe, property worthless, unless some
thing could be done besides the slow
and uncertain results of law. The quib-
bles, the delays, the eloquence of the
criminal lawyer, were matters about
which grave doubts clustered and were
too unsafe to be trusted with such res
possibilities as were then on hand. The
very thought that it became necessary
for them TO take the law into their own
hands, caused as much sorrow as even
the loss of the two noble men who fell.
They consulted, they reasoned, they
weighed the matter well. AS men, as
good citizens, they went forth to do
what the whole world will pronounce
well done Justice Justice All wish
it might have been otherwise, but il
could not be. The wound was too deep,
home too sacred, life too sweet. How
could it be anything but a sorrowful
city! Well does she deserve the title
we give her, and will for many long
years to come.
We saw this city Friday, May I'd, and
beheld her grief as the funeral cortege
was returning from the cemetery after
the burial of the president of the bank
Z. W. Payne. We also saw the body OF
the cashier, George Geppert, in his own
house, and the bodies of the four who
caused all this grief, and we said ther
we never saw such sadness. Sabbath
May 4th, We were present and assisted
at the funeral of the last named victim
Mr.. Geppert. This showed fully the
depth of the grief of the town. The
hundreds who could not enter the
church and the hundreds who followed
to the grave gave full proof of what al
| felt.
Our heart goes out in sympathy and
in prayers, for all the people of this sor
rowing city, but in particular for the
sad and broken hearted faDilies of these
noble men.