The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-03-23
Work of ~Incendiary.

Not many years ago the late DR.. Joe
Presley who was then residing in the
town of Troy furnished a handsome drug
store in that town and set about to do a
drug bushes in addition to the practice
OF his profession.
On a morning he entered his store to
find that an enemy had entered it during
the night time and had ruined completely
his splendid stock of drugs and druggists
sundrieS.
Kerosene had been poured over the
tobacco and cigars; the show cases we're
broken to the last plate glass; the spec
tacles were each in turn shattered; the
costly labeled bottles were q heap of ruins;
the sawdust Of the flooor swan in the
contents of the erst while bottles; leather
goods were opened with a knife; costly
perfumes were emptied into the stationery;
the prescription desk was Uttered with
the medicines from its shelves; the bar
reIs of oils were allowed to run out over
the floor, except such as was used to ruin
other goods; everything that could be de-
stroyed was unutterably ruined. Spleen,
dark, thick, yellow spleen, evidenced it
self in q work Of ruin, more studied ana
complete than which n o seldom witnesses.
All this is mentioned by way of intro
duction to DR.. Pressley's remark when
his gaze encountered this wreck and ruin.
Forgetting his own blighted prospects,
forgetting his pecuniary loss, thinking
only of the enormity Of the hate and spleen
and rancor and venom and malice pre-
pense, that could so occupy the heart OF a
man as to drive him to commit such an
offensive, detestable deed, he simply re-
marked; "some poor soul has gone to
hell" turned on his heel and never took
q second look.
When we consider the enormity OF the
prejudice, the diabolical malevolence and
malignity, and concentrated quintessence
of hate that must fill up and run over a
mans heart in driving him to commit
such crime as was committed last week
in the premeditated, systematic burning
of HARRISON College and HARRISON negroes
when We think Of it all, we are reminded
Of DR.. Pressley's remark and steal his
words to say again, "some poor soul has
gone to hell"
Could the inhumanity Of man be more
darkly portrayed than in the ashes OF this
colleg and the incenerated bones Of the
burned negroes? Not since history was
in the making has such a hellish crime
been perpetrated in Abbeville County,
| The incident, or rather the %split-hoopcp
brutality that made it, is enough to make
one shudder.
To think that in all probability there is
in Abbeville or it's environs a human being
capable of such a deed, that it Is possible
and probable he has heard himself con-
denied with his awful deed, and that he
hides in security still nursing his venom-
to think it is horrible.
Such a person is a cancer on the body
polite and ought to be cut out at all costs,
if the healthy life of the body is to be
preserved.
No Goth, Hun, or Yandal in all their
.depredations ever approached the frog
blooded, devil-inspired deed of such a
There is an Acclaim in the camp. There
is q worse one than an Acclaim in the
camp. There is an accursed thing in the
midst of thee, D Israel: thou canst not
stand before thine enemies until ye take
away the accursed thing from among you
We should like Joshua Of old search out
the cause of this horror and stone him
with the stones of the law and place a
monument of expectation and %disapproval
over him, even as in the valley of
Achor.
Our civilization has been outraged. Be
the dooer Of the deed black or white, he is
fiend, and should have no part or parcel
with civilized men. Every thing possible
should be done to apprehend the guilty
party and when he or she is unprecedented
the law should be allowed to take its
course.
Put the matter before an Abbeville
County Jury with the proper evidence and
the hardened sinner will pay for his sin.
tits not because property has been de-
stroyed, it is not simply because lives
have been lost; it is because a person or
persons can fall so low as to deliberately,
cold-bloodedly, with black malice afore-
thought and yellow spleen, oil and set on
fire a building containing humanity, in
any form, with the intent to burn them up.
1t is because of this that Abbeville should
interest herself; it is in this that the nor
ror lies.
We have a better opinion of our people
than to believe that there is a single per-
son in Abbeville who pockets the ollense
to our civilization or condOnes the fiendish
act.
Nemesis will overtake the perpetrater
of the deed if the devil has not already got
him, and while we are uncompromising us
to his deserts we cannot help but feel Il
pity for such a parody OH humanity
but, then, pity is close kin to contempt