The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1900-08-04

" uuuuEtu 'tuu lWcHI1 -OhC WITS Dt
o fore Christ, in one of The mos
s cultured cities of the then know
\. world; the stoning of Stephen b,
those who laid down their gar
ments ut the feet of Saul was bu
: the riotous act OF religion
mob,-the work OF certain of tn,
0 synagogue of the Libertines, wht
0 "were not able to resist the wis
dom and the spirit by which he
7 spake," and answered his argu
4 ments by procuring his death
J coming on down to the middle OF
! the fifteenth century we find Jack
4 Cade and "the Commons of Kent
3 endeayoring to widely emphasize
their grievances upon the dull
( senses of British arlstocracy; st.
Bartholomew day, nearly a cen
fury and quarter later, inaugur-
ated what is probably to stand
forever as the vastest and blood
lest demonstration of religious IN
tolerance, tinctured with politics.
in history, "a succession of riots,
wherein the number of huguenols
slain by the fanatical mobs is var
iously estimated at from thirty
thousand to seventy thousand; the
Gordon Riots of 1880, when the
cry Of mo Popery' was raised,
and London given over to a re-
liglous mob for three days and
four hundred and fifty Catholics
murdered, again show us to what
extremes religious hatred NAV be
carried; the revolution that
brought to its close the reign of
the unhappy Louis was but riot
on horribly grand scale,-a riot,
in it's final analysis, growing out
of hatred for the nobility on one
side and contempt for the Com
mons on the other; the commune
istic riot which followed close
upon the withdrawing of the Ger,
man troops, after the long seige of
Paris, though probably more in
famous for it's unparalleled acts
of ruthless vandalism than for
the number Of lives lost, was yet
essentially of purely anarchistic
origin.
BUT what of America
She, too, has had her share, and
u long enough list could be made
of those within the memory Ct
living men, without taking note
of the disturbances Of earlier
| times.
The New York "Draft Riot"
occurring in 1868, probably re-
mains the most extensive exam
pie in our history of what I'M
bridled passion may lead to, and
of the extent to which ungoverned
prejudice may be carried by pco-
pie ordinarily classed as laW-abld-
ing.
Havinglts inception in the injus
tice, real or imaginary, of the exc
cution of the CONSUMPTION acts by
which New York patriotism was
being helped out, once fairly afoot,
the bent of the mobs showed the
actuating motive Of their conduct.
In the cry of ''down with the
rich man" and in the destruction
of the negro orphanage by fire, and
the beating and stoning of every
negro who fell into their hands, as
being "the cause of the war;" we
see the effects of the reiudice,
both of caste and race.
Northern papers are much given
to dilating ut length upon the de-
PRAYED condition Of public senti-
ment and the vicious state of So
ciety which such outbreaks indl-
cate, when they occur in the
South; hence it is perhaps we'll to
remember that such things possess
no element of novelty, but are
as old as time itself, and that as
induces to the health of public
sentiment they are as worthless as
is the biased opinion of Boston
editor on such matters.
Whether sitting plebeian pro-
tests or aspirations in ancient
Rome, or stoning the first mar
tyr at Jerusalem, or numbering
Protestants in Paris, OF staying
Catholics in London, or batting
Jews throughout almost the whole
of Europe, or killing Cinnamon in
the Philippines or in the United
States, or dragging Garrison
through the streets of Boston, or
Lovejoy's press and
killing him, in Illinois, or killing
In New York or New =
Orleans, or destroying the property
IF corporations in Homestead, !
Chicago or st. Louis,-lt matters !:
lot either where or when, preju- I
lice of some sort is at the bottom !,
If nearly all great riots. :
Such things are unfortunate,
nd are to be stamped out by any 7
possible means; but, fortunately =
or us, they do not show depraved .
'ublic sentiment, at least In Amer u
ca, for here that very sentiment u
ompels the best people in every g g
to join in their sup "
ressiOn. "
They simply indicate the pres
nee in society Of more or less y
Stensiye body, which gives free q
Gin to prejudice, permits passion .
, get The better Of reason, and, q
II the time. allows the brute to p
olninate the man. 81