Year: 1866

Inc suicide OF Senator Lane, OF Kansas, IS
very melancholy incident If ever the act
of suicide can be traced to organization and
organic condition, it certainly can be SO
traced In this case. Lane was man of the
most impulsive and reckless type 1--WE do not
in this case use the word reckless in its moral
applications) that the West produces, man
who had no higher law than his own person.
ality-and could tolerate no bride upon his
will. Lately his health suddenly became
prOstrated, and he had to leave his seat in
the Senate threatened, if not actually struck,
with paralysis. 1t was while in this condi-
tion, with deranged brain and shattered
system, that he was guilty of the act of self
destruction.


1t was in connection with the heroic
history of the young State of Kansas
that Lane figured most conspicuously; and
the part he bore in rescuing her from the
clutches of Slavery, not only secured him the
Senatorship for two successive elections, but
will cause him to be remembered with graft
tude in her history as long as she has citi-
zen to enjoy the freedom he did so much to
win. OF his advent into the Territory in
1854, after his long and adventurous march
from Iowa; of the numerous fights he fought
with the "Border Rufians" at the head of
small bodies of Free-State men of the man.
ner in which he reused the people by his in
tensely impassioned appeals; of his ceaseless
personal and political struggles; of the great
triumph achieved by the Free-State party,
of whom he was the acknowledged leader,
in so far at least as such men as settled Kan
sas could acknowledge any leader; of any of
the extraordinary incidents that marked the
career of this singular Western politician and
fighter, we do not propose to speak in detail.
But there is no danger of their being forgot
ten in the West. At the beginning of the
great war of Secession, he left his seat in the
Senate to take part in the national defence,
and both in the raising of troops and in ac-
tual duty in the field, he did as much service
as was possible even to man of his capaci-
ties. But though fighter, fitted in the
highest degree for irregular operations on the
Border, and against such enemies as he met
on the plains of Kansas in 1856 or in Mis-
souri, in the early operations of the late war,
he was no soldier in a scientific sense, and
soon discovered that his mission was not to
plan campaigns or command armies. He
returned to his Senatorial duties, and during
the war and until some time after its close,
his politics were of the most radical anti
slavery type, but latterly he has been in the
main supporter the President and his poll
cy His course in this latter respect has Sc
cured for him the most violent denunciations
in the State which he representative poll
tics of which are of the Wendell-Phillips or
der ; and he became so unpopular among his
old friends that, bold and defiant though he
was, he hardly dared to set face among them.
This trouble unquestionably intensified the
Others. and because of the others seemed of a
more formidable character than it would
have done to Lane had been sane in body
and brain. In the Senate Lane made no
especial mark, as an orator he found him.
self out of place there, as he had previously
found himself out of place in this city. 1t
was on the stump in the West and in times
of trouble and confusion that Lanes native
oratorical powers and intensity of character
told with effect and their effect under such
circumstances was very great.


Lane was very ambitious man. He was
accused of using means of any kind to attain
his end, and unquestionably he was not very
scrupulous, though there were doubtless as
many false charges against him as there are
against most of our public men. He cared
nothing for money only to scatter it, and
while he had many enemies, had also numer
Gus devoted friends. Were we to point a
moral from his untimely end, it would be a
caution against giving way to the passons
on the part of those whom God has gifted
with reason.-NeU York Times.


FATE OF DESPERATE MEN.-Bob johnson,
or Bob Mcneil, as his real name is, met the
almost invariable fate of men of his class in
this city. He fell in gambling saloon, rid
died with balls and hacked with bowie
knives. Each wound he received -represen-
ted some like wound he had inflicted on
others, and the number of his mortal injuries
hardly exceeded the number of homicides
which he had perpetrated in his violent and
turbulent life. He was, we trust, the last of
class of men who, some years ago, made
the name of our city infamous by their deeds
of unparalleled turbulence and violence,
which were too long and too patiently borne
by the peaceful citizens.


Of these men, the names of five occur to
us, who were victims of the system of assas-
sination which they inaugurated, and which
gained for them the well merited title of
Thugs. Jim Logan fell in an attempt to
murder respectable citizen.


g. Abe Phillips was surrounded at night by
his own recent allies, and stabbed and shot
until he fell into the gutter CORY corpse /;
Horton was one of Bob Johnson's many vic
TINS Forbes was overmatched in mur-
derous affray; and the soul of Bob johnson.
escaping through dozen murderous wounds,
has gone to join the congenial society Of his
fellow-murderers.


We know nothing of the circumstances of
the killing of this man. 1t may have been
murder. 1t may have been justifable homi-
eide. Murderer and bad man as johnson
was, the law does not sanction the taking Of
his life by any individual or individuals.-
But it is certainly cause of general gratif-
cation, and gives sense Of relief. strength
ems our belief in retributive justice, when
such men are thus removed from commu-
nifty which they have SO long disturbed and
disgraeed by their infamous deeds-M O.
| Picayune.


SuV CIry TTrRE-The San Francisco (Ca1 !