23rd April. We printed at some Jength on Tuesday an account of the recent lynching at New Orleans. For thirty-five years New Orleans has been terrorised by the active existence of a secret society among the Sicilian immigrants, the Mafia, which has grown so strong that it has been able to hold itself above the law. It has had two branches, springing from Palermo and Messina respectively, the Provenzanos and the Matrangos, and they have lived by blackmail, eu-forced by murder, In thirty-five years twenty-nine murders have been traced with certainty to the Mafia, four of the victims being natives of New Orleans, the rest Italians. Death by the stiletto or the shotgun was the penalty for meddling with the Mafia, and it was accordingly let alone until David C. Hennessy, a brave and determined man, was made Chief of Police. He succeeded in iuforming himself thoroughly as to the existence and methods of the Mafia, and he determined to root it out. The unloading and loading of the ships engaged at New Orleans in the Central American trade are in the hands of the Sicilians, and the shipowners und others concerned were kept in terror, now by the Provenzanos and now by their rivals, according as they employed one or the other clan. Chief Hennessy had get his evidence well in hand, and was about to use it; he knew that the Mafia had determined to kill him, but he kept on with his self-appointed task, though as a measure of precaution he was always accompanied by one of his captains when he went out at night. Just before midnight on the 15th of October last he was on his way to his ome from the Central Polics Station and had just said good night to Captain home, when two charges from a double-barrelled shot guin'were fired into him on his own'doorstep. He had time to fire four shots from his revolver at three flying figures, when Captain O'Connor ran back, attracted., by., the noise, and found him sitting on the doorstep, one charge having "ploughed through his stomach." lo whispered that the "Dagoes," leaving the Italians, had shot him. "The next morning he was dead, and the city was in terror."
A number of Italians were arrested by the detectives as being concerned in the crime, and lodged in the parish prison. Before they were brought to trial it was confidently asserted that no jury would dare to convict' them, and the assertion proved correct. The jury were afraid to convict, but the men were put back into prison to stand a minor charge. New Orleans was stirred to its depths by this failure of justice, for it was known that the prisoners were guilty. How they were executed we read on 'Iuesday morning. It was not an ordinary wild mob of Iynchers that took the law into its own hands, We learn from the New York Herald that "W. S.' Parkerson, the leader, is a, prominent lawyer, the president of the outborn Athletic Club and the man who led the vigorous city reform movement three years ago. Walter D. De-neger, another of the speakers, is one of the leaders of the New Orleans Bar John C. Wickliffe is also a prominent attorney, and James D. Houston: one of the solidest men in the city." Such men as these, and as the other leaders of the mob of avengers, all of whose names are freely published in the papers, would not be found at the head ofan ordinary mob of assassins, Only the very gravest such an errand, and that provocation provocation could bring them out on there was in the present case, Our first inclination, when reading of this lynching is to agree with the Ne York Herald's first article on it crime of every species and criminals of every nationality and degree are to be dealt with by the law of the laud, not the violence of the mob. When citizens resort to such violence they put themselves on a level with the criminals they assail. The crime committed by the New Orleans mob yesterday was the same as that for which its Sicilion victims were tried—assassination. Doubtless many throughout the country will applaud or approve the action of the New Orleans people. It may be that the wretches shot or lynched deserved death. But the mob were not their lawful executioners. It is the boast of our institutions that life can be justly taken only by due process of law, that a prisoner acquitted by a jury of the people is a free man and that all law-abiding citizens must bow to the verdict, right or wrong." This sounds very well; it is an extension of the base-principle of civilisation, that a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.