The Semi Weekly Leader

Mob violence is always to be deplored, and the affair at Brookhaven is particularly unfortunate because it seems to have been altogether unnecessary. The fiend's prompt conviction and execution under the law was assured. A special court had been convened for that very purpose, there would doubtless have been no delays other than those imposed by the statute. So far as the negro himself was concerned, he had surrendered all claim to consideration. His life was forfeit by his own act and his punishment could not have been too severe. He deserved no sympathy and he received none. But the moral effect produced by the successful attack upon the military force of the State must be bad. It may tend to encourage further disorder in future cases of this character, and Gov. Noel, recognizing this, has announced his intention henceforward to see that prisoners threatened with mob violence are afforded a more adequate military escort, authorized to protect their prisoner at all hazards.

It should be understood, however, that the farmers who executed summary vengeance upon Pigott are not mobsters in the ordinary sense of that term. The crime which he committed is one that stirs to frenzy citizens otherwise peaceable and law-abiding. Few of us are so thickly veneered with civilization as to be completely proof against the surge of primitive instincts in cases like this and the overmastering desire for rude and effective punishment of brutes like Pigott. Sticklers for lawful observance will never be able to legislate the desire for stern reprisals against monsters of Pigott's type out of the minds of red-blooded and right-thinking men. The presence of the victim's father and the universal sympathy which went out to him were as fire to tow. The result, however unfortunate and regrettable, was not unnatural.

As for the troops, in spite of their unquestioned sympathy for the victim of the outrage, they seem to have done all that could be done under the circumstances to perform the unpleasant task to which they were called. The painful incident may be dismissed, therefore, with the hope that its repetition, with its consequent ill-effect, may be avoided in future.

—Times-Democrat, Feb. 11.