A CRUEL CASE OF LYNCHING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1182, 24 May 1884, Page 2

A CRUEL CASE OF LY NCHING.

The most extraordinary case of lynching which has taken place lately (says a San Francisco paper) is that of Michael Cuddigan and wife at Outray, Col., for (he murder of a little girl named Rose Matthews, whom they had adopted from orphan asylum. Colorado is more abandoned to lynch law than any other State, but the Ouray affair, principally because oae of the persons who suffered was a woman, has excited an unparalled degree of interest, and elicited numerous strong expressions both of condemnation and approval. While some of the Denver newspapers declare it was a lasting disgrace to the State to lynch a woman, others as passionately defend the act of the Ouray mob. do strong were the antagonistic feelings excited that tha body of the murdered girl was dug up from the grave, carried to Denver and placed on exhibition, where it was viewed* by 20,000 people in one day. The body had been frozen and also bore the marks I of brutal blows ; it was a most horrible exhibition and ought not to have been permitted. There is little reason to doubt the child was murdered ; but whether Cuddigan and his wife were both guilty, and, if so, in equal degree, was something the mob did not take time to ascertain. There is considerable reason to believe Mrs Cuddigan was insane. Her attending physician declares she was, and it is learned that her father died a lunatic. Though the accounts of her life and general reputation are conflicting, there is utrong testimony to show that, while in her right mind, she was a woman who had the respect of her neighbours, and I vvould not be suspected of inhumanity, much less of murder. About all the • evidence against Cuddigan and his wife wa3 the discovery of the body of ■ the child in the condition described in a shallow grave on the Cuddigan farm. In short it was a case which called for the ' most careful judicial investigation, and the mob, in putting the parties to death without investigation assumed an awful . responsibility. Tin brutality shown to the woman in dragging her, barefooted and almost naked, over the snovv strongly accuses the mob of wanton cruelty, and, if the guilt of murder did not attach itse'f to the woman, the manner of her death, and that of theunbornbabe whodied with her, stamps the act with the guilt of murder in the worst form. The Denver JNews, Republican, and Inter-Ocean calls for the apprehension and punishment of the lynchers, and, among other points made, direct attention to the fact that in all cases of lynch law in that State, the mob never seizes men who have the means of defending themselves, or not until such persons have first been apprehended and disarmed by officers of the law. It is an old saying and a true ona that mobs are us cowardly as they are cruel.