Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-03-20
The New Or,.,,, u....cr.

The swift and dreadful act of vengeance
visited last Saturday morning by New
Orleans mob on eleven Italian prisoners
whom jury had failed to convict, is with
out parallel in kind in this country. The
antecedent circumstances were also without
a parallel. For years an organized system
Of robbery and murder has existed in New
Orleans. Since 1866 there have been no
less than 30 assassinations in the city-not
murders simply. When Chief-of- Police
Honnessy, young man aged only about 30
years, was elected to that office, it was
with the understanding that he would at
tempt 70 ferret out the organization which
was doing this bloody work, and causing
what practically amounted to reign of
terror in the city. Detectives we're not
only employed at home, but were sent to
Italy, and as a result of their work the
public became satisfied that there existed
in New Orleans an organization of the
Malta, a secret oath-bou society. trans
planted from Sicily, and relic of the days
of pillage and brigandage. Soon after this
Hennessy was shot down in cold blood at
his own door, as is related elsew here in our
news columns. There was no doubt in the
public mind that the men who we're ar
rested and brought to trial were those who
did the murder. The city had spent $56,-
900 on their trial The belief was firm that
the failure TO convict was due either to
bribery or to the fear of the Jurors that
they would themselves fall victims to the
wrath Of the Malta. The mob did its work
in open daylight, without disguise, and
with perfect deliberation.
After the bloody work was done the cot
ton exchange and the board of trade of the
city met and adopted resolutions declaring
the work of the mob to be proper and
iustifiable. If ever there was case where
resort to mob law seemed justified it was
this, and there is enough of savagery lin
gering in every human heart so that it is
impossible not to feel a certain sy npathy
with the reasoning and the resulting action
of these leading" and respectable" citi-
zens of New Orleans 1t must be acknowl-
edged that this swift and violent admins
tration Of Justice will be likely 10 have a
healthy and restraining effect on our i'm
ported criminal classes like those of the
Malta and the Chicago anarchists But
after all this is said every right-minded man
knows in his own heart that the work of
the mob was neither proper" nor "justifi-
able" IL was a confession that the bar
riers Of self-protection, so carefully reared
by our system Of civilization, are ineffective
in the last resort. 1t was an appeal to the
method of the beast and not of the man.
The occurrence is blot which many years
cannot wipe off the record of the old city of
New Orleans. The state of things which
brought it about is one for which the peo-
pie of the city are themselves responsible.
1t is the natural sequence and outgrowth
OF that system of bloody terrorization in po-
litical affairs, some of tue bloodiest chapters
OF which were enacted in the state of Louis.
lana. The organization and rule of the
Molly Maguires in the Pennsylvania mining
regions was no less complete and deadly
than this of the Malta in New Orleans, but
by the orderly methods of the law, and with
no resort TO mob violence, the secret of the
organization was discovered, its leaders
were arrested, tried, convicted and hung,
TO the number of a score or more and its
operations effectively broken up. This diff
ference in methods represents in a very
large measure the difference in the civiliza-
ton of the two sessions.