Philadelphia might well have been spared. It is due to our reputation for active benevolence, to adopt effectual means to assist the unfortunate, victims of mob law.

From the Baltimore Gazette, 1836.

We learn from St. Louis, that on Thursday last, a coloured man was arrested on board a boat, by a deputy sheriff and constable; that another coloured man assisted him to escape from the officers, whom they immediately arrested, when he killed the sheriff upon the spot, and so badly wounded the constable that he is not expected to live. The negro was then secured and committed to prison; but the people assembled in great force, with the determination of tearing down the prison if he was not given up to them.

He was delivered to the mob, who conveyed him to the outskirts of the city, placed a chain round his neck and a rope round his body, and fastened him to a tree from the ground, when they then placed fire round the tree, and literally roasted him alive! His shrieks were most awful during the performance of this terrible tragedy.

From the Helena (Ark.) Journal, August 11, 1836.

HORRIBLE ATROCITY.

WE are informed by several gentlemen from Columbia, Chichot county, that on Monday evening after the election closed, a man, by the name of Bunch, was taken and hung by the citizens of that place. The cause which led to the infliction of such summary punishment, we are informed, was owing to the unlawful conduct of Bunch. He claimed the right to vote, which was refused by the judges, owing to his being a coloured man. Bunch took umbrage at this rejection, and resorted to violent measures. During the affray, Dr. Webb, a highly respectable citizen, was stabbed several times, the wounds supposed to be mortal. This so incensed the citizens, that Bunch was taken up and hung.

From the National Intelligencer, 1837.

A NEGRO MORTALLY STABBED AT GEORGETOWN.

A NEGRO boy, named John Slim, was mortally stabbed in the fishmarket at Georgetown, last Saturday morning, by a white boy, named Robert Scott. As this horrid transaction, which took place in the height of the market, about eight o'clock in the morning, has occasioned a strong sensation in the community, we have endeavoured to obtain a correct statement of the particulars from the coroner, Thomas Woodward, Esq., who, immediately upon hearing of the death of the negro, summoned a very intelligent and respectable jury. It would appear, from the evidence of the witnesses, that Slim, the deceased, was selling fish for his master, Captain Goodwin, in the Georgetown market. He was accosted by Scott, who told the deceased that his fish were not good; to which the negro replied, that it was no business of his. The white boy then cursed the negro, when an altercation took place, which ended

in Scott's seizing a large pruning-knife, which was lying open on the stand and throwing it at the negro. One of the witnesses, however, was not certain whether Scott struck the negro with the knife, or threw it. The blade of the knife, which was large, sharp, and pointed, entered the left side of the negro, and pierced his heart, so that death ensued in about ten minutes after the lad had received the fatal wound. A witness testified that he saw the negro stoop after he received the wound, put his hand to his breast, pull out the knife, throw it on the fish-stand, walk a few paces, and fall! The jury found a verdict conformably to the facts disclosed in the evidence. We understand that Scott absconded immediately after he had committed this horrid act; and that he has not as yet been taken, or surrendered to the officers of justice.

From the New Orleans Bee, 1837.

A MOST barbarous and cruel assault was on Sunday committed upon a mulatto fellow belonging to Mr. Rivnan. After having been put to a torture which would disgrace the most savage cannibals, he was dragged lifeless with a cord round his neck several squares. Still the demoniac fury of his assailants was unappeased, and they were preparing to put an end to his life, when a citizen, with great risk, threw himself between the victim and his unfeeling persecutors, and with the assistance of Mr. Michon, a police officer, succeeded in rescuing Him. Captain Maurice being apprized of this disgraceful and outrageous occurrence, placed himself at the head of a detachment of the artillery corps who happened to be on parade, and after some resistance succeeded in capturing these inhuman wretches.

They are safely lodged in prison, and will, we trust, receive the punishment they so richly merit.

We learn that the cause of this outrage was, that the victim was indebted to one of them for a barrel of potatoes! He is still alive, but in a state of agony, from his wounds, which places his life in great jeopardy.

THE WESTERN DISTURBANCES.

From the New Orleans Bee of the 13th.

Extract of a Letter dated "Jackson, July 8. "TWENTY miles from this place, in Madison county, a company of white men and negroes were detected before they did any mischief. On Sunday last they hung two steam doctors, one named Cotton and the other Saunders; also eleven negroes without law or gospel, and from respectable authority we learn there were two preachers and ten negroes to be hanged this day."

From the St. Louis Republican, April 30.

MORE LYNCH LAW.

THE particulars of the drowning of a free negro man, named Tom Culvert, second cook on board the steamboat Pawnee, on her passage up from New Orleans to this place, are as near the facts as we have been

able to gather them. On Friday night, about ten o'clock, a deaf and dumb German girl was found in the store-room with Tom. Tom was accused of having used violence to her, but how she came there did not clearly appear. The next morning some four or five of the deck passengers spoke to the captain about it. He informed them that the negro should be safely kept until they reached St. Louis, when the matter should be examined, and if guilty he should be punished by law. Immediately after he left the deck, a number of the deck passengers rushed upon the negro, bound his arms behind his back, and carried him forward to the bow of the boat, and in an instant he was plunged into the river. The captain hearing the noise rushed out. The engine was stopped immediately. The whole scene of tying and throwing him overboard scarcely occupied ten minutes, and was so precipitate, that the officers were unable to interfere in time to save him.

ANOTHER ABOLITION RIOT.

We regret that the order and quiet of the good town of Danby, in Connecticut, has been disturbed by one of the itinerant messengers of discord, in the employ of the immediate abolitionists of this city. On Thursday evening of the present week, a man, named Nathaniel Colon, attempted to deliver an abolition address in that town-to hear which, an audience of about four hundred people assembled within the church, and to prevent which, a much larger assemblage was gathered on the outside. The lecturer, and those concerned in getting up the meeting, were cautioned against the procedure to no purpose: they were bent upon accomplishing their design, and openly bade defiance to their opponents. The result was a riot, and a dispersion of the meeting, by means of stones, brick-bats, &c. &c. The windows were smashed in and the lecturer, together with the male and female sisters in attendance upon the discourse, made to fly with unsavoury garments. The experiment of another lecture is to be tried in Danby this evening.-Boston paper, 1836.

From the Cambridge (Md.) Chronicle, August 22, 1837.

JUDGE LYNCH.

THE reader may recollect a meeting was held in Brinkley's district, (Somerset county,) on the 2d June, with the ultimate view to remove the free blacks from said district. It was resolved" that all free negroes who should not leave the district before the 1st of September would be considered as insurgents, and also that, after that time, the laws of this state (which are now neglected) would be enforced against them." We noticed the meeting at the time; but supposing it owed its origin to an excitement resulting from an exaggerated view of things, thought to hear no more of it. We were mistaken, however.-It is the subject of an advertisement in Tuesday's Village Herald, setting forth that the resolutions adopted at the meeting will be carried into effect-that the free negroes remaining in the district will be expelled. Both the tone and style of the advertisement seems somewhat calculated to excite surprise. We certainly did not expect such an emanation from any part of

Somerset, knowing the deferential regard she has uniformly paid to the laws, and we would be slow to believe that the publication in question, which concludes in the following exceptionable manner, could receive the sanction of any considerable number of citizens.

"Judge Lynch will be in the district, on the last day of this month, (August) in order to commence his judicial services-we trust his associates will not be far behind him, as we presume his Judgeship will be crowded with business; we sincerely wish, however, that the free negroes (poor human creatures !) will not trust their cause to the venerable judge, but make their escape before he arrives, for he will be compelled to do his duty, notwithstanding any law, custom, or usage heretofore practised in any of the courts of this state to the contrary."

THE MURDER OF ROBERTSON.

"WE alluded yesterday to the murder of a young Scotchman named Robertson, by a mob in the vicinity of Lynchburg, Virginia. Since penning that paragraph, the Richmond Enquirer has come to hand, containing the subjoined letter, dated on the 6th instant, from that unhappy victim of newspapers and of a mob, whose name, it appears, was David F. Robertson. No one can peruse it without sensations of shame, horror, and indignation. The letter was intended as an explanation to shield himself from the butchery which he evidently apprehended, and with too much reason. It appears that he was not the person supposednot the Robertson punished four years ago in Petersburg for circulating incendiary abolition pamphlets-that he never was in Virginia before; that he did not arrive in Richmond by the steam-boat, on board of which the abolition paper was found, which led to the horrible catastrophe; that he never meddled with the slave question, and is in principle opposed to the designs of the abolitionists. Such at least are his statements, and there is a tone of manliness and candour throughout the letter, which sounds much more like truth than falsehood. And yet this offensive stranger has been barbarously murdered-hung up to a tree in the highway! without the privilege accorded to the worst of felons—a time for preparation to meet his awful fate-hurried from existence by a mob, without a crime, and without a moment's pause for thought!

This deed is the worst of the atrocities which have of late disgraced the land. Not only has an unoffending individual, and a stranger, been publicly murdered, but all confidence has been destroyed. Life is held at the mercy of a mob, and the traveller who happens to be unknown to those who meet him is liable at any moment to be seized and put to death, under the system which pushes law aside, and constitutes any reckless rabble both our judges and our executioners. On what can

we rely for safety? Must we band together and travel with arms in our hands, to protect ourselves from the cruelty of those whom we call our brothers ? Virginia owes it to herself, to the Union, and to the reputation of our common country, to search out the perpetrators of this murder, and by legal means to bring them to the same end which illegally and unjustly was the lot of Robertson.

The following observations on the burning of the Philadelphia Hall are extracted from the Address of the Eastern Executive Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society to the Citizens of Pennsyl

vania.

By a resolution adopted at the last session of the Pennsylvania AntiSlave Society, during the memorable week just elapsed, the Executive Committee of the Eastern District was instructed to address the public, in relation to the events which led to the adjournment of the Society before the completion of the business which had been presented to it. In discharging the duty thus laid upon them, the Committee have prepared the following statement of facts, which, with the comments suggested by them, are commended to the careful perusal and attentive consideration of the people of Pennsylvania.

66

In pursuance of a regular call from the Executive Committee, the Society was convened in Philadelphia, on the 16th instant, at the Pennsylvania Hall, a splendid building which had just been added to the architectural decorations of our city, and but two days before been opened, and dedicated to free discussion. Our hearts were cheered with the fact, that here, in a city where we had so long sought in vain for a convenient place in which to plead for the oppressed, and vindicate the rights of the poor, men of various opinions on political, religious, and moral questions-on that of slavery and its proper remedy, among others had erected a noble edifice, which was at once an ornament to the city, and a refuge for the spirit of Liberty, an arena, where mind might freely grapple with mind, and, to use the language of Jefferson, even error of opinion might be tolerated, while reason was left free to combat it." We rejoiced, for we felt confident that our principles, in the fair field of open argument, must triumph and prevail; and that we needed, therefore, but an opportunity to bring them fully before the minds of the people, to ensure the eventual approbation and co-operation of all whose favour and aid are truly desirable. We had attended the previous meetings of the week, and witnessed the solemnities of the dedication, by which the hall was consecrated to freedom, and we felt in our hearts, while we gave thanks to freedom's God for what our ears heard, and eyes saw, to congratulate our fellow-citizens that they were the first to found a building, specially designed for the free expression of opinion on every controverted subject. **Of such events of the week as preceded our meeting we should say nothing, were it not that they are all so closely connected with each other and with the final catastrophe, as to render it necessary to the full understanding of the portion more particularly coming under our cognizance, as the organ of the State Society, that a brief recital should be given. On the morning, then, of the 14th instant, a vast concourse of people of the city and adjacent country assembled at the first opening of the newly-finished hall, and as soon as the meeting was called to order, the Secretary of the Board of Managers of the building made a concise statement of the purposes for which it was erected. Of this statement we here insert a copy.

"A number of individuals of all sects, and those of no sect-of all parties and those of no party-being desirious that the citizens of Phi