The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-10-31
A CRIME THAT MONEY. WILL NOT
ATONE FOR.

Whatever may be the legal effect of
the evidence brought out in the at
tempt to secure the conviction of the
two Fair fakirs, Lilliston and Clarke,
or either of them, for the killing of
their brother fakir Smith, one thing is
very clear to the mind of the average
citizen that in shooting as they did
recklessly in a depot packed to suffo-
cation with hundreds of innocent per-
sons and with women and children
subject to the shock and panic which
would naturally follow upon a pistol
duel of the sort engaged in, they COM
mitted a crime which richly deserves
the severest penalty of the law.
1t is to be hoped, therefore, that
the matter will not be confined to the
search after the slayer of Smith. The
evidence as to him may be inconclu-
sive. While in law the crime of hav-
ing caused his death is the greater, in
morals the shooting in the crowded
depot, the endangering of the lives of
"a turpitude a recklessness, a fiendish
abandonment to passion which is in
finitely worse. Is it to be that, be-
cause of the very crush of people
whose safety they jeOpardized, and the
consequent fact that no one saw the
shot fired into the small of Smiths
back. these guilty men are to be prac-
tically set free through the payment Of
small fine, or the giving of a bond
which they would gladly forfeit? If
so, there will be a feeling of insecurity
engendered throughout the State
which cannot but in the end find
somewhere violent expression. The
people of the State are not much in
terested in Smith. He came here and
was killed, whether with malice
aforethought by some enemy, or in the
issue of pistols, is immaterial. But
what justice does demand is that the
men who put innocent lives wilfully
in jeopardy should be given a punish
ment rot measured in dollars and
cents Notice should be served on
these accretions to Fair weeks that
when they are caught they will be
punished; that the jails wait and the
roads are ready, and that it is not in
compatible with the law that gentle
men who live by their wits should
work also with their hands.
Consider what these men did! The
Union depot was thronged with a
great crowd, for the most part sim
pie, honest people preparing to go
home from a holiday. In the mems
waiting room. the mass of humanity
surged to and fro, shouldering one
another, pushing toward the doors,
crowding to get their tickets. Separa-
ted from this room, in the women S
side of the building, were several hum
dred women and children. Suddenly
these two, bringing a quarrel started
in a house of ill-fame into the midst
of the crowd, began to shoot. At the
first fire, there was the panic that
follows always on an unseen danger.
Comparatively few people knew who
was shooting, where the combatants
the fusilade. Ia the crowded rooms
shot after shot rang out. The smoke
CURED above the heads of the crowd.
Nobody knew whether or not the next
moment he might be shot. In this
crisis the crowd acted like plain peo-
pie. Women screamed, little children
covered in their seats, men shouted
and rushed in a mass towards the
door. The panic. was naturally some
thing fearful. Miraculously few peo-
pie were hurt. For some reason a
majority of the balls went high. One
man was killed, another was struck,
at least one had a most narrow escape.
Who killed the dead man is not yet
established. He may have fallen from
stray bullet, he may have been killed
by a cold-blooded shot in the back by
third man. This remains, however
and with it the crime-that two of
the men who were doing the shooting
are in custody. The question is, what
will be done with them? Are they
to be treated to a fine, or to bail for