The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-03-19
THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 1891.
TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN NEW Or
LEANS.

The city of New Orleans was the
scene of terrible tragedy last Satur
day. a press dispatch conveys the
following intelligence:
The people of New Orleans to-day
wreaked dreadful vengeance upon the
supposed assassins of Chief of Police
Hennessy, who were acquitted last
night by jury alleged to have been
corrupted, and broke the power OF the
Italian secret society called here ''The
Mafa," which has terrorized this COM
munity for years past.
A mass meeting was held around
the statue Of Henry Clay at o O'Clock
and addressed by prominent citizens.
The crowd, numbering several thou
sand, then proceeded to the Parish
Prison, into which they forced an en-
trance, and there shot and strangled
to death eleven of the Italians charged
with Hennessy's murder.
The proceedings were most DELHI
crate, and some ofthe prisoners against
whom the evidence had not seemed so
conclusive, were spared.
The mob then, on the advice of its
leaders, quietly dispersed.
The general verdict of the New
Orleans press is that the end justified
the means. The Times Democrat of
Sunday said this:
Desperate deeds require desperate
remedies. For year or two past the
administration of criminal Justice in
this city has been gradually losing
credit with the law abiding citizens
who constitute large majority of the
community. Crimes of very trucu-
lent and atrocious character have been
over and over again committed in
crowded neighborhoods, and although
the State officers and the police of the
city have done their utmost and have
set the machinery of the law in motion
to secure the conviction of the perpe-
have not been obtained. All ordina-
~ methods have been tried fairly and
fully and had failed. Extraordinary
methods must be had recourse to, and
with effect. In the violation of the
ordinary routine of justice, to which
the citizens, in complete and admira-
Bile self-control, resortcd yesterday,
they were doing merely what the law
and administration of justice had con-
fessedly been unable to do for them
selves. To vindicate law, which had
been repeatedly Knocked, and to rein
state justice again upon her throne,
the people took defiant crime by the
nape of the neck and strangled and
threw it into the gutter. This is the
lesson of the thrilling events of yester-
day, March II.
The Picayune comments as follows:
1t has come at last the popular
vengeance which the weakness and
corruption of unworthy servants have
rendered necessary. A great public
wrong had been committed. Redress
had been asked at the hands of the
constituted authorities and according
to the due forms of the law. Every
recourse known to our system of gov
eminent had been exhausted in vain.
There was no other hope, there were
no other means, but for the people to
take the matter in their own hands
and right their great wrong! When
1t comes to this the people are law
unto themselves. There is no higher
power save God. And in matters of
government the people, in their SOW
erelSn capacity, represent the supreme
Popular jAstlce is a desperate remedy.
May many a generation of men pass
away before it shall, if ever, become
again necessary in the city.
The New Orleans States negatives
the idea that they wreaked vengeance
upon the asSassins simply because they
were Italians or Sicilians, and says:
The men of New Orleans were not
looking for Italians or Sicilians they
were looking for gang of assassins
who had escaped the penalty of their
damnable crime by the bribery of a
jury and the perjuring hired witnesses;
they found the assassins they. were
looking for and did them 10 death. |
That done, no other act of violence
was committed; no Italian or Daeo
was harmed; nay, even threatened with |
snolestation
The New York Times says this: |
While every good citizen will read
lily assent to the proposition that this
affair is to be deplored, it would be |
difficult to find any one individual |
who would confess that privately he |
deplores it very much. |