FREAKS OF A JACK-IN-OFFICE--THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE DISTRICT
CONFERENCE
_Correspondence of the News and Courier_
Marion, S. C., July 20, 1874.
One W. A. Hayne, of nondescript complexion and Radical
persuasion, whose frantic speeches and other wild performances
during a political canvass several years ago procured him the
sobriquet of "Notoriety," is just now lording over our unhappy
people in the guise of a United States commissioner. In this
potential capacity he has commenced active operations against
those who he or his ebon emissaries choose to suspect of
transgressing the internal revenue law. Farmers who may have been
in the habit of purchasing small quantities of tobacco just as
they purchase other supplies for the use of the laborers on their
plantations, have all at once become victims of vindictive
prosecutions--the officers who make the arrests, and the
over-zealous witnesses for the government, all being negroes. It
is said that a farmer must not buy tobacco for his hands without
having obtained a regular license therefor. While this may or may
not be true, it seems to be certain that the warlike commissioner
is enforcing the decision not so much in the spirit of the law,
which he pretends to vindicate, as with a malicious propensity to
annoy his political opponents. He was not gracious enough to
consider that our farmers were without perhaps a single
exception, ignorant of the existence of so stringent a ruling,
(if, indeed, it does exist,) and he did not see the propriety of
advertising it for the benefit of those whose character would
belie the suspicion of an intention to defraud the revenue. It
may be that "Noteriety Hayne," by thus flaunting in our faces his
puissant commission, means to enhance his consequence as a
prospective candidate far the Legislature, or that he thereby
seeks to ingratiate himself with the colored people who relish
(as he may suppose) the persecution and humiliation to which the
planters are subjected by such wanton abuses of misplaced
authority.
The transaction from this topic to matters of religion may be
somewhat violent; it is, nevertheless, a relief. The Marion
District Conference of the Methodist Church convened here on
Thursday last, and remained in session four days. An unusually
large number of delegates were in attendance. The deliberations,
which were presided over by Rev. W. C. Power, were conducted in a
spirit of earnest devotion to the important interests which came
up for consideration. The reports from the various charges in the
district, which embraces the Counties of Marlboro', Marion, Horry
and Georgetown, and portions of Darlington and Williamsburg,
exhibited a most gratifying state of the church. The
Sunday-Schools were shown to be in a very flourishing condition,
and the cause of temperance was making headway against all
opposition. The Rev. Drs. Shipp and Jones, presidents
respectively of Wofford and Columbia Female Colleges, were
present, and their fine pulpit ministrations added much to the
interest of the occasion.