| Show extinguished IN BLOOD in february last the entire pou poul lation atlon of this state was shocked with the details of a crime committed in northern mexico in which mrs S P F mcdonald was brutally murdered the outlaws were ere bent upon plunder and finding themselves detected proceeded to add the shedding of innocent blood to their doubtless already long list of diabolical deeds although clues were almost wholly wanting at the time the victim having been alone jr in 6 her store la in an out of way wa place and the murderers escaping at onoe there was waa little it any difficulty in locating the crime where it belonged for many years a number of fugitives from justice have had a holdforth in the acclivitous heights of that part of the count country and d from it the government itself 6 has r repeatedly peat edly tried in vain disastrously so so to dislodge them to this retreat the vicious and vile as well as those upon whose heads there was already a price have congregated and been able not only to sustain themselves but to sally forth now and then in greater or less array and pillage plunder and devour as well as murder with the utmost freedom from capture or punishment to this band or some members of it the cowardly killing of mrs mcdonald was traced and a number of law abiding citizens in their buatt justifiable flable wrath arose and went forth to capture or exterminate the miscreants whichever might be necessary the one who prepared the dispatches relating to the matter has evidently lived on the american frontier in the dangerous days long since past or has had bad his vocabulary reinforced by some who did so live to call the men avenging angels who performed so signal and salutary a service for the state ax the extermination of the black jack gang may be some peoples idea of propriety Ppe lety but it is tolerably certain that not revenge but enforcement of law and the compas compassing of justice were the objects aimed at even the killing which according to all frontier codes would have been justifiable as soon as the outlaws were found was made a 4 matter of self defense and followed the refusal to surrender and attempted resistance of the gang to have delayed one second longer would have been for the pursuers to court if not meet t their own destruction the experience of the past having shown that the pursued were not only expert marksmen jut but unusually quick on the trigger clearly one party or the other had bad to so go and it happened to be th right one that did the slack black jacks have been a greater source of dismay and loss to the people of the north mexican border than was ever the murrill band in kentucky and states some time before the war the predatory features of their career were dreadful enough but these sank into insignificance ance compared with their bloodthirstiness and ill to commit any manner of crime the murder of mrs mcdonald was blit one instance out of many mamy of thir red handed methods methode and atit their taking off reads at lint first something like a of FL a chap red novel it was all right as am to method and unquestionably proper in its results |
