Pike County press. (Milford, Pa.) 1895-1925, 1897-12-17

ior.
Certain newspapers which claim
for themselves at least a modicum
of truthfulness and reliability in the
news they print, published accounts
during the past few days of the
Schultz execution. In display head
lines it was announced as a gala day
in Pike county and that hundreds
of the populace flocked to the scene
of execution. That farmers with
their wives, children and hired help
came into town in vehicles of every
description, and that the scene re
sembled a County Fair 1t was
stated that the grounds outside were
dense with people and when the
Sheriff called on the multitude to
look at the lifeless features a grand
rush was made and that men and
women pushed each other until all
had seen the body. In an editorial
the New York Journal says medieval
darkness seems still to pervade tho
county, and that the hanging was
made an occasion for exciting NOR
bid curiosity, a barbarism which
fingers only in these wilds and other
regions not yet redeemed from
heather darkness.
On the conduct of the officials il
is not our purpose at present to
comment. They are able, if they SO
desire, to contradict or deny such
assertions regarding them as have
been made which are not truthful
We do now protest however against
the misstatements made in regard
to the conduct of the people of Pike
county. Every respectable citizen
of Milford can and will truthfully
say that there was no crowd what
ever. Outside the number invited
to witness the execution including
the officials, doctors and jury, about
one hundred in all, a number of them
came from New York state and New
Jersey, there were not at any time
fifty people ON the square or around
the Jail. 1t is false to say that there
was anything like a holiday appear
ance, or that farmers with their
families poured into town. A few
men, and we think we speak within
the bounds of truth when we say not
more than thirty, gathered outside
in little groups, and stood 81 emily,
or, if they spoke, did so in low tones
and without any levity whatever.
Every one seemed duly impressed
with the solemnity of the occasion,
and behaved in a perfectly decorous
manner.
That the New York newspaper
dispatches should totally misrepre-
sent the facts and malign the citizens
of this county is not to be wondered
at. They bounded us at the begin
ming, called our county paradise
for murderers and used every effort
to convict Schultz in advance of his
trial. They boasted that it was
through their enterprise in securing
evidence and their urging that our
officials were goaded into action,
and that they had created a public
sentiment which secured conviction.
They patronized our people, and sold
their papers.
They had opened our eyes to the
enormity of our sins of omission in
allowing murderers to escape justice
and we were through the influence
of their enlightened teachings re-
lizing our benighted condition. The
people here, at least some of them
have been buying and reading and
believing in those same papers ever
since, and if their present accounts
of the behavior of their readers is
true, we submit what effect this
up-to-date journalism has ON the
minds and morals of the class of
people they number among their
readers.
"Vipers whose treacherous fangs,
Smite the hands that feed them"
The doors of the Jail were left
open after the witnesses had left
the room, and a number of people
did pass in and view the remains,
but there was no large crowd, and
we do not justify this action either
on their part, or those officials
whose duty it was to see that the
doors were promptly closed,
But it is passing strange that the
4 uiluuClIjllld L Itco anu l. AiutS idlJtIS
which circulate to some extent in
this community, and which claim
for themselves a degree of confidence
and credit should join in thus ira
ducing citizens of their own state
and spreading broadcast sensational
statements utterly at variance with
the truth If their daily news is of
such generally unreliable charac
ter, as their accounts of the scenes
at the Schultz execution, is known
to be here, they cannot ask for or
expect the patronage of reputable
readers
The Philadelphia Press under the
caption of a "cheap hanging" says
the District Attorney received 81
and the Sheriff s15 fees. 1t should
know that the County Commission.
ers have nothing to do with thai
matter as the law fixes the fees ol
those officers. But its most Won
derful display of ignorance or dis
regard of truth is in the statmeni
that ''the county receives $15 from
the Anatomy Board for the body,
which will pay the Sheriff's fee
Somebody must be wholly oblivioul
to the provisions of the Act Of Jun'
13, 1888.