The Spirit Of The Times

SHOCKING MASSACRE.

We learn from a gentleman just from
Arkansas that a gang of counterfeiters,
horse thieves, and negro stealers, amount-
ing to upwards of twenty, were recently
butchered, or tied and thrown into the ri-
ver by a party of enraged citizens of Ar-
kansas and Mississippi. This shocking
and bloody affair took place on island 64,
near the mouth of White River. We un-
derstand that the depredators had stolen
horses in Coahoma county, and were pur-
sued to the river; but such was their for-
midable numbers in their own camp in
Arkansas that their pursuers dared not ven-
ture across the river to recover their stolen
property, though the horses were exposed
to their view; and the thieves taunted their
pursuers as they stood on the bank of the
river inviting them to come for their horses.
A flat boatman sold all his produce to
some of them, and received from them
counterfeit money. When he returned
with the money he was threatened with
lynching if he did not clear out. These
repeated outrages induced some seventy of
the inhabitants to lay a plan for breaking
up the gang; and they adopted the follow-
ing: they procured a flat boat and used it
as a trader, while the whole force conceal-
ed themselves in the back part of it. This
was used to induce the thieves to come on
board to pass off their counterfeit money,
and as the boat stopped at their haunts,
each of them was caught and secured as
soon as he came on board and offered to
pass the money. This device was prac-
tised until they had trapped twenty or
thirty—the exact number we could not
learn—when they took them out and shot
them, or tied them and threw them into
the river. We learn that the bodies of ele-
ven were found at the latest accounts from
above. Vicksburg Sent'l.