Southern States, you say in the editorial article addressed to me: “We confess that the practice complained of, while it is not so prevalent as the editor would make it appear, is none the less to be deplored, and, we are convinced, is rapidly going into desuetude.” I emphatically disclaim all desire to make that “practice” appear more prevalent than it really is. What the Evening Post has been doing for two or three months, is not to invent any cases, nor to exaggerate them, but simply to discuss them as they were reported by Southern newspapers.
Their number, I regret to say, was quite large, too large indeed, to be accepted as representing the decline of the practice. And it was the Southern press that classified them, and drew attention to them by elaborate descriptions. In a multitude of instances we were told the deed was done by a man “greatly respected by his neighbors,” of a “well-known family,” or “a citizen of prominence,” or “a member of good society,” and that the occurrence was “generally deplored,” or that it had “cast gloom over the community”; and, in not a few cases, that “further difficulties were apprehended.” But we did not once hear that the perpetrator was tried, found guilty and hung, or even that it was generally hoped he would be. Thus it was the Southern press which made these homicides conspicuous and gave them their peculiar significance. What we did was simply to point out to the Southern people that, for the sake of their good name as well as prosperity, such outrageous practices should not only be deplored, but stopped. And as you yourself “confess that the practice is to be deplored,” I may fairly assume that you earnestly desire to see it stopped. We are thus engaged in a common cause, and you will, therefore, surely take it in good part if I venture to make some suggestions concerning the means to be used to that end.
It is necessary to set those forces in motion which are
