The record-union., 1894-05-21

charges of fraud and scheming made
against the water election result, against
the contract, or against any influence ad-
vocating the clear water supply; but those
who were so ready to prefer themi now
admit their inability to maintain such
charges. They co lcede that there Is only
chatter, "they says" and mean suspicion
on which to base their accusations. So
much for that-now let the contract be
enforced.
ANOTHER SENSATION EXPLODED.
1t looks very much as if the case made
up against George Decker, an old rancher
Of Siskiyou County, was malicious, a
concoetion of villainy to crush the man
and divide his property as spoils, and to
hound an innocent being to an ignoble
death, to serve the secret purpose of
some designing person.
George Decker is a wealthy farmer of
Siskiyou, who has spent the best part OF
his long life in that section; was widely
and popularly known, liked and es-
teemed by all, man of no little in
duence, of much decision of character,
and so far as has developed fair dealing
man. 1t is true he has had varied matri-
monial experience. He was suddenly
arrested and jailed recently on the charge
of numbering his wife a third of CEN
tury ago.
From the very outset there appeared to
be at the Sisk1you terminus of the news
line some malicious prejudging and
coloring influence. The tone of one class
Gated that some one at the Yreka end of
the wires had a deep interest in desiring
the conviction of Decker. Upon the heels
of this manifestation, sensational journal
ism, which is doing SO much to destroy
public faith in everything newspaper
prints, made its dramatic entry into the
case, and trial by newspaper and by pub
lie gossip at once begun. But it was one
sided, prejudiced, and but for the serious
ness of the charges laid at the door of
poor Decker, was ludicrous in its anxiety
10 convict the man in the judgment of
the public mind.
The one charge of murder grew into q
second, third, fourth and fifth, until
more than dozen homicides were posted
up to Deeker's account. Old bones were
found and carted forward from mouldy
caves to bear witness to his guilt. Trivial
circumstances dragged from the forgotten
past of thirty years or more and in
sufficient to hinge charge upon against
vagrant dog. were magnified into
mountains of proof; the most inconse-
auential facts were contorted into damn
ing evidences of guilt.
Decker was held up to the horrified
view as a Blue Beard: he was pictured as
a monster of bloody cruelty; a fiend who
fattened upon the flesh and bones of
more than half score of women. girls.
boys and men who had fallen beneath his
relentless thirst for gore.
So pertinacious, circumstantial and
elaborate; so cunning, devilishly adroit
were supposed facts and assumed circum-
stances worked up against this old man,
and manipulated in the sensational press
reports OF the town gossip that the entire
country community was arrayed against
him; the public pulse beat at fever heat:
the public judgment was poisoned, and
the wonder is that lynch law did not as
sert itself, as at one time it threatened to
do and make George Decker another
victim to its Unsuitable appetite for human
life.
And now the end has come. After the
San Francisco press has permitted its
columns to be used in this way because of
it's love for sensationalism and its theory
that journalism consists mainly of excla-
nation points and instant judgments. it
turns out that George Decker's ''mur-
dered wife, is alive, stout and hearty,
though aged, and is at this moment con-
fronting the community that four days
ago was ready to stake its existence upon
the guilt of the prisoner. George Decker is
to-day free man and grasping the hand
of the grown daughter. whose infant
bones he was charged with having
crunched nearly score of years ago.
George Decker goes out of Jail at Yreka
spotless, while the grandson he was
charged with numbering plays marbles
with his companions on the side hill at
And so down the long list, the
thing is a series of exploded bubbles and
collapsed sensations, and all the circum-
stances which sensationalism week ago
blew into the proportions of bloated
truths which held hangman's moose
over George Decker's head, have dwin-
died into microscopic ineonsequence.
He did not hide his victims in a cave,
for he had no victims; he did not strangle
his two grandsons, bowstring his step
1..,-.hto. ~ Iyn;fa his how Ron or IriiI his