|THIS county has had two hemp carnivals during the past few weeks, and
it begins to look like old times again. In each case the murder was
unprovoked, and the victim a quiet gentleman. That is why there was a
popular feeling against the murderer, and a spontaneous ropestretching
benefit as a result. While we deplore the existence of a state of
affairs that would warrant these little expressions of feeling, we
cannot come right out and condemn the exercises which followed.
The more we read the political record of the candidate for office, as
set forth in opposing journals, the more we feel that there are already
few enough good men in this country, so that we do not care to spare
any of them. If, therefore, the mischievous bad man is permitted to thin
them out this way, the day is not distant when we won't have good men
enough to run the newspapers, to say nothing of other avocations.
We know that eastern people will speak of us as a ferocious tribe on
the Wyoming reservation, but we desire to call the attention of our more
law-abiding brethren to the fact that there has been in the past year a
lynching in almost every state in the Union, to say nothing of several
hundred cases where there should have been. Do you suppose Wyoming
young ladies would consent to play the waltz known as "Under the Elms,"
composed by Walter Malley, if Walter had been as frolicsome here as he
was down on the Atlantic coast? Scarcely. We may be the creatures of
impulse here, but not that kind of impulse.
Minneapolis hung a man during the past year, and so did Bloomington and
other high-toned towns, and shall we, because we are poor and lonely,
be denied this poor boon? We hope not. Because we have left the East and
moved out here to make some money and build up a new country, shall we
be refused the privileges we would have enjoyed if we had remained in
the states. We trow not.
A telegraph pole with a remains hanging on it is not a cheerful
sight, but it has a tendency to annoy and mentally disturb those who
contemplate the violent death of some good man. It unnerves the brave
assassin and makes him restless and apprehensive. Death is always
depressing, but it is doubly so when it has that purple and suffocated
appearance which is noticeable in the features of the early fall fruit
of the telegraph pole. Lately, we will state, however, the telegraph
pole has fallen into disfavor, and is not much used, owing to a rumor
which gained circulation some time ago, to the effect that Jay Gould
intended to charge the vigilance committee rent.