The record-union., 1893-06-14
SHAMELESS SYMPATHY.


murderers, Sontag and Evans, closes one
chapter in a disgraceful affair that shames
the State. That these men did rob trains,
certainly one train; that they blew open
a United States mail car with dynamite
and mercilessly beat an express messen-
ger and left him to perish in the flames
of his car, from which he was rescued
barely in time; that they did kill and
wound officers who were discharging
their duty, before they took to the mount
aims as hunted outlaws-these things are
not to be disputed.
The evidence against the robbers is
overwhelming. The finding of the
money taken at the last robbery hidden
in Evans yard removes any doubt of
guilt. 1t was mainly in foreign coins and
easily identified
The resistance by both men and their
firing upon and wounding the officers
when they were inquiring into the rob-
berry, in the first instance, is proof posi-
tive to the impartial mind of guilt. In
Hc,ent men would never have acted as
did Sontag and Evans when they shot
Witty and Smith at Evans house.
But while the presumption of limo
cence must, in the theory of the law, OBJ
tain until these men are convicted, the
facts that the brainy member of their
gang is already serving for life in the
State Prison; that the outlaws have
throughout their career made no suffi-
cient denial of guilt or explanation of
their acts; that they have adopted a
method of resistance wholly incompati-
bile with innocence; that they have killed
and wounded the peoples officers, and
have borne themselves steadily as guilty
men, to whom capture meant conviction
all these facts justify comment upon
them upon the theory of guilt, and re-
moves them from that merciful reserva-
ton of judgment that just people ac-
cord the untried man, as a rule.
But more disgraceful and humiliating
than the acts of these men is the ridicu-
lous and shameful sentiment that has
grown up in their behalf. 1t is a rebuke
to our civilization, a reproach to the
whole people of the State, that there
should have been an attempt to invest
these fellows with the toga of heroism
and the poetry of chivalry.
The sentiment of sympathy for these
cutthroats that finds expression in open
declaration of regret that they have been
captured, is the fruit OF sensational jour
nalism; the legitimate result of a policy
in the newspaper world that Is doing in
calculable harm in corrupting the public
taste and cultivating spirit that is in an
tagonism to human rights, to peace, good
order and the best that there is in civili-
zation.
The fact is that no careers were ever
more prosaic. They have not made a
single plea, nor has one been set up in
their behalf, that should inspire in anv de-
cent heart the slightest sympathy or re-
spect. They are plain, laundering, brutal
robbers, and the most bloody of cold and
heartless murderers. Dick Turpin and
Claude Duval did show some feeling
of pity for their victims; they did
some deeds of charity: they had some
thing of the air of gallantry; they in
vested their deeds with something OF
manly courage, and had something OF
pride in the etiquette of the road-so to
speak.
But the Sontag and Evans gang were
the most ordinary of thieves and high
waymeu. One of them, Immediately af-
ter the train robbery, bought a livery
stable for round sum. though thereto
fore be was never known to have means
enough to buy a single on the roof
another buried the coin he stole from the
express car, when his companion terri
fed the passengers by raking the train
fore and aft with his gun to prevent any
one looking out or interfering. None Of
them liked to labor or were given to in
dustry, except that Evans pecked little
at stable-keeping. ranching and mining
without the energy and persistence thai
are marked by success.
That there should be sympathy