The Caledonian

HORRID TRAGEDY.

By the western Mail we received the following most melancholy account of a murderous scene in the Council of Wisconsin, which we copy from the Madison (W. T.) Inquirer, of Feb. 12. A heart rending duty devolves upon us this week, which is to announce the death of Hon. Charles C. P. Arndt, a member of the Council from the county of Brown, who was shot in the Council room, by J. R. Vineyard, a member from Grant, immediately after the adjournment yesterday. It is proper to mention in a general way the circumstances attending this horrid tragedy, which has thrown a gloom over the public mind here—has deprived the Council of one of its most talented and efficient members—society of an ornament—an aged father and mother of a son on whom they doted—and a wife and children of a husband, a father, and a protector.

A discussion of a heated character arose upon a motion made in the Council to reconsider a vote by which the nomination of E. S. Baker as Sheriff of the county of Grant, was rejected a few days since. During the progress of this discussion, some violent words passed between Mr. Arndt and Vineyard.—The first conceived himself to have been insulted, approached Mr. Vineyard after the adjournment for the purpose of seeking an explanation—a slight personal rencontre then took place, when—the latter drew a pistol from his pocket and fired. Mr. Arndt reeled a few paces, then sunk to the floor, and almost immediately expired, having been shot through the heart!

We shall not in the present justly excited state of the public feeling, make such remarks in reference to this high-handed outrage as would seem to be called for—suffice it for the present to say that the dastardly and fiendish perpetrator of this deed which disgraced our Legislative halls and our Territory, is in the hands of the law, from which it is to be hoped he will not escape without that condign punishment which justice would seem to demand. Individual security—the cause of public morality—every thing connected with the well being and peace of society—requires that the severest penalties of the law should be inflicted.

A witness of the above tragic scene writes to the Tribune as follows:

I had been in friendly converse with the deceased but a moment before. I witnessed the altercation, the drawing of the pistols, the flash of the report. I saw the countenance pale, the limbs relax and the victim reel towards the floor—but I could not realize the truth of what I witnessed. Unused as I am to scenes of the kind, (and who is not?) it seemed like a dream or pantomime, or a scene got up for effect. It was only when I listened to the agonizing cries of the father, and witnessed the tears coursing upon the cheeks of those around me, that I could realize the pale form upon the floor before me to be the lifeless remains of him whom I sat beside but a moment before, and who was then flushed with health and buoyant with hope and cheerfulness. What years of grief had birth in that one fatal minute.