The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-02
DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

An Old-T1me Shooting Scrape In Which
Colonel Bunch and His Son Were
Killed
When the weather is fine and the
outlook bright, the pilot house Of a
Mississippi steamboat is usually well
patronized by the passengers, ladies'
and gentlemen alike, who come up to
obtain a better view of the surround
the cabin below
On these occasions the pilot, who is
a veteran at the business, is now and
then given to entertaining his visitors
with interesting stories, suggested by
the locality and events which hap
pened in the olden time One of these
narratives, which is full of local color,
and moreover dramatic 20 degree, Is
here reproduced in full: Zone of the
worst shooting scrapes that ever hap
pened along the river" the pilot began,
had been hard down. and permitting it
to spin around with the velocity Of a
top, took place out there, just above
the mouth of the bayou, about thirty
years ago, when they burned the old
post-office and the warehouse. You
see where they stood by the piles of
bricks there on the bank"
All admitted the ruins were plainly
visible, when he changed to the oppo-
site side of the wheel, and after a
spirited effort, made to counteract the
effects Of an impinging current that
had caused the boat to swerve from
her course, he continued:
1.-THE boat that I was on got caught
in the fog and we tied up under the
point there about five o'clock in the
afternoon, and a lot of us went on
shore to take little exercise. 1t was
on a Saturday, and good many peo-
pie had come in from the country to
do their trading and get their mail.
Some of them were pitching quoits and
others shooting at a mark, when we
first landed, but they quit when they
saw the man carry the mail bag we
brought, and went in and stood around
waiting for the letters to be sorted.
They had all been drinking and were
pretty noisy, and when the postmaster
said there We're only two letters and
they We're both for Bud Johnson, a col
ored man, murmur of disapproval
went around, and several of them in
sisted on a new deal. You can look
for yourselves" said the postmaster,
tossing them the bag, but after search
ing it and finding it empty they were
in a worse frame of mind than ever.
Presently one of the number, local
politician, got up and fade a speech
derogatory to the administration. He
insisted that the government was pref
udiced against white folk and that he
had no use for the office anyhow Sew
eral of the others expressing their APP
prevail of this sentiment, a general
smashing up of everything at once fol-
lowed
During the row the coal oil lamp
was broken and the house set on fire
and everything burned up. Colonel
Bunch, who owned the property, notic-
ing the fire, came up from his planta-
ton below and denounced the perpe-
traitors of the outrage as vandals. The
colonel was high-spirited man, and
didn't stand any foolishness, but he
was getting along in years now and
couldn't do much but talk, so that
when one of the men declared that he
could whip any Bunch on earth, he
looked like felt himself to be in a pref
ty close place.
But the colonel stood his ground,
until, at last, when the contending
armies were about to come to blows,
his son appeared upon the scene, and
learning the cause of the trouble,
sprang between the two, and, drawing
his revolver, said: my names
Bunch; and when my father gets too
old to defend himself 1 can stand in his
tracks and take his part AT this
juncture the shooting commenced and
made for the boat. Everybody
seemed to take sides against the
Bunches, and you'd have thought them
band of guerillas from the way they
kept the fight up. Presently noticed
the colonel roll down the bank and
stop jst at the edge of the water, and
then his son came staggering down too,
and fell near his side. They were both
dead. We wanted to- leave, but the
men We're afraid to go on shore to I'M
tie the lines, for the Infatuated crowd
were still calling for more Bunches and
the colored man who had got the let
ters but he had climbed the tree, and
they didn't know where he was. An
hour or so later, when the crowd had