The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-08-02
a. amss,. 4
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MOUNTAIN DESPERaooEs.
They Have Made Parts OF Kentucky Oar


They Have Made Parts OF Il entucky Dark
Continent.
The sentence 20 death of Talton Hall,
the mountain desperado, is another
evidence that the wild country extend
= ing along the borders of West Virginia,
Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee and
farther south is making an effort to
free itself from the various desperadoes
and bands of desperadoes who have
long given to these sections character
not in accordance with American civil
SZation. For several generations 1t has
been impossible to secure the convic-
lion of murderer there. If the courts
themselves were not Influenced by par
tisanship, the witnesses were afraid to
testify, and no man suffered for taking
another's life unless the friends OF that
other took his own in payment. This
was the case in the most isolated neigh
lborhoods, which were almost as COM
pletely shut out from the world as
if they had been located in the South
seas.
But since the miners and the railroad
builders and others have entered these
regions the population is becoming
gradually reclaimed. Many of the worst
desperadoes have been punished Some
have been hanged, others are in the
penitentiary for life, and since the law
now gives some protection, witnesses
are not afraid to offer their evidence.
Thus more convictions are sure to fol-
low, and in time the once half-wild pop
ulation of the Alleghenies will become
as orderly as the inhabitants of any
bther part of the union.
There have been many false impress
sionS concerning these mountain feuds
and battles. 1t has often been said
that they will offer good material for
the future novelist when time shall
have thrown a little romance over them.
Perhaps they will, but there is no ro-
mance about them at present, though
the latter argument is not valid against
the novel writer, for we have always
believed that Scotts picturesque high
land outlaws were in reality the COM
monest sort of cattle thieves and as
sassins, who wore dirty clothes and
Bneaked around the mountains because
they were too lazy to work.
In the same manner the writer will
pus exercise when he deals with the
hesperadoes of the Alleghenies- They
are an idle, worthless set, who prey
upon and bully the industrious and or
nerly portion of the community, while
nearly all their feuds are generated and
kept alive by deep rotations at the il
licit distilleries
There is nothing picturesque or in
spring in the appearance of these des-
peradoes. If the curious expect to see
tall, agile mountaineers, with erect
heads and bold eyes and the manners of
a Rob Roy, they can prepare themselves
for disappointment. Usually they are
small, sallow and shrunken, shutting
of gait, unsteady of eye and never erect
of form, and if the truth must be told
about them they are cowardly. The
most notorious murderers never fight
face to face with their victims and on
equal terms, as the bold outlaws in the
story books do, but they seek every ad-
vantage. The proper name for it is not
fighting, but assassination. Usually
man is ambushed and shot when he is
least expecting danger, and if there is
any open fight at all it is because one
party is able to attack another in over
whelming numbers.
Frequently in these mountain feuds
women and children are killed as merci-
1essly as if they were men, and it has
been a favorite method for one faction
TO surround cabin at night, set it on
fire and shoot the inmates as they ran
out Such things as these show of
what stuff the braves of the Alleghen-
les are made
It should also be known that the des-
peradoes form but ANAL fraction of
the mountain population, They have
hitherto carried things with such a
high hand that they have given their
bad tone, in the eye of the public out
side, to the character of all. The great
bulk of the mountaineers of the Allegha-
MES, whether in this state or another,
are law-abiding citizens, and when re-
1ieved of the incubus of the desperadoes,
which they will be, will give to their
country a reputation for peace and
good behavior. Herald.