A KENTUCKY VENDETTA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 10 April 1908, Page 6

A KENTUCKY VENDETTA.

The shooting of Judge Hargis, of Jackson, Kentucky, by his reprobate son, closed a series of feuds which, says a New York correspondent, can only be paralleled by the fierce vendettas of Sicilian or Coreican romance. Judge Hargis was a rough, uneducated man, but he was Democratic boss of his county, and as such was county judge and dispenser of political patronage. His influence was such that for twenty years his misdeeds went unpunished, and he ' is reported to have spent £40,000 in successfully defending charges of murder, but when he thrashed his grown-up son he went too far. - The young man went next day to his father's shop, wqundeU him, and when his father shrieked for mercy fired two more shots into his body. Hargis was the central figure in the notorious Hargis-Cockrill feuds. The Hargises had long been* dominant in the county, and when they were opposed by the Cockrills at the polls feeling became so bitter that revolvers were drawn. Each side sought to establish the justice of its claim by killing as many people as possible, and in the first nine months of the feud there were 38 deaths. A Dr Cox, guardian of the two Cockrill boys, was decoyed out o»e night and shot at his gate by a concealed assassin. James Marcum, a leading lawyer in Jackson, who was fighting Hargis in local politics, for months never left home without carrying his infant daughter in his arms, for he felt certain that his enemies would spare the child. So soon as he omitted to take this precaution he was shot dead on the steps of the Courthouse. His wife swore that she would bring the murderers to justice, but although the actual perpetrators were imprisoned, Hargis escaped conviction by treachery. The poor woman spent fire years in trying to bring the judge to justice. Jackson juries persistently refused to convict in such cases, in the face of irrefutable evidence. Judge Hargis had more than a presentiment of his end, for he had made to order a very expensive coffin. It is estimated that during the feuds 23 homes and many business places were burned, and 60 people were killed. "Neither education, nor wealth, nor the refinements of civilisation are as strong as the murder lust in the Land of Feuds," says a magazine writer. As for reform — "regeneration will come only through the introduction of outside influences of people who will not only intellectually but numerically settle in this broken, mountain region."

PARASITIC DISEASES OF STOCK.— At this season young animals are more or less affected by parasitic diseases, causing scour and general weakening of the system. "Vermocine" is unequalled for all internal parasitic diseases of stock. Prepared by the A. and P. Food Co., Ltd. Obtainable from Barmby and Cole, Hawera. — Advt.