where they were sold. They had their regular lines of communication from Wisconsin to St. Louis, and from the Wabash to the Mississippi. In Ogle county, it is said they had a justice of the peace and a constable among their associates, and they contrived always to secure a friend on the jury whenever one of their number was tried. Trial after trial had taken place at Dixon, the county seat, and it had been found impossible to obtain a conviction on the clearest evidence, until in April of this year, when two horse thieves being on trial, eleven of the jury threat ened the twelfth juror with a taste of the cowskin, unless he would bring in a verdict of guilty. He did so, and the men were condemned. Before they were removed to the state prison, the court house, a fine building, just erected at an expense of $20,000, was burnt down, and the jail was in flames, but luckily they were extinguished without the liberation of the prisoners. Such, at length, became the feeling of insecurity, that 300 citizens of Ogle, De Kalb and Winnebago counties formed themselves into a company of volunteers, for the purpose of clearing the country of these scoundrels. The patrons of the thieves lived at some of the finest groves, where they owned large farms. Ten or twenty stolen horses would be brought to one of these places of a night, and before sunrise, the desperadoes employed to steal them were again mounted and on their way to some other station. In breaking up these haunts, the regulators generally proceeded with some of the formalities commonly used in administering justice, the accused being allowed to make a defense, and witnesses examined both for and against him. At this time, there lived at Washington Grove, in Ogle county, one Bridge, a notorious confederate and harborer of horse thieves and counterfeiters. In July two horse thieves had been flogged, and Bridge received a notice from the regulators that he must leave the county by the 17th, or become a proper subject for the lynch law. Thereupon he came into Dixon, and asked for assistance to defend his person and dwelling from the lawless violence of these men. The people of Dixon then came together, and passed a resolution to the effect that they fully approved of what the association had done, and that they allowed Mr. Bridges the term of four hours to depart from the town. He went away immediately, and in great trepidation, but made preparations to defend himself. He kept 20 armed men about his place for two days, but thinking, at last, that the regulators did not mean to carry their threats into execution, he dismissed them. The regulators subsequently removed his family, and demolished his dwelling. Not long after, two men, mounted and carrying rifles, called at the residence of a Mr. Campbell, living at Whiterock Grove, in Ogle county, who belonged to the company of regulators, and who acted as the messenger to convey to Bridges the order to leave the county. Meeting Mrs. Campbell without the house, they tod her that they wished to speak to her husband. Campbell made his appearance st the door, and immediately both the men fired. He fell, mortally wounded, and died in a few minutes. "You have killed my husband," said Mrs. Campbell to one of the murderers, whose name was Driscoll. Upon this they rode off at full speed. As soon as the event was known, the whole country was roused, and every man who was not an associate of the horse thieves, shouldered his rifle to go in pursuit of the murderers. They apprehended the father of Driscoll, a man nearly 70 years of age, and one of his sons, William Driscoll, the former a reputed horse thief, and the latter a man who had hitherto born a tolerably fair character, and subjected them to a separate examination. The father was wary in his answers, and put on the appearance of perfect innocence, but William Driscoll was greatly agitated, and confessed that he, with his father and others, had planned the murder of Campbell, and that David Driscoll, his brother, together with another associate, was employed to execute it. The father and son were then sentenced to death; they were bound and made to kneel. About 50 men took aim at each, and in three hours from the time they were taken, they were both dead men. A pit was dug on the spot where they fell, in the midst of the prairie near their dwelling. Their corpses, pierced with bullet holes in every part, were thrown in, and the earth was heaped over them. The pursuit of David Driscoll, and the fellow who was with him when Campbell was killed, went on with great activity, more than a hundred men traversed the country in every direction, determined that no lurking place should hide them. The upshot was, that the Driscoll family lost another member, and the horse thieves and their confederates were driven from the country. Within a very few years, the thinly settled parts of Iowa have suffered from like organized gangs of horse thieves, until the people were obliged to resort to a like summary process of dispelling the nuisance. To the isolated settler in a wilderness country, living many a long mile from neighbors, the horse is of a peculiar value, elsewhere unknown. So keenly is the robbery of these animals felt, that, in the failure of ordinary penalties to stop the perpetration of this crime, public opinion justifies the generally recognized "Frontier Law," that DEATH is to be meted out to horse thieves. The attitude of several of the states of the union has been determined by the conduct of a few noble men in the hour of trial. Where men of ability faltered or proved recreant, the people of that state became divided, and all the horrors of civil war were experienced, but, where they were loyal, the people united, and the war raged far from their borders. Had Kentucky, instead of a Magoffin, had a Morton, and Missouri a Yates, instead of a Jackson, how different might have the history of those states been: what horrors they might have escaped. Illinois was peculiarly fortunate in her public men at the outbreak of the rebellion. With them love of country overruled every other consideration. DOUGLAS, the great statesman of the west, in the hour of the nation's peril, forgot the claims of party in his devotion to his country, and spoke words that thrilled and inspired the heart of the people. Her executive was prompt, far-sighted and untiring in labor for the welfare of the soldiers of Illinois. It was his eye that discerned in a captain of infantry those high qualities which have made the name of GRANT illustrious. And from Illinois, too, came ABRAHAM LINCOLN, that PATIENT man, who, with singular calmness and wisdom, looking serenely aloft, bore the helm in the years of the people's great trouble. As a mournful interest now gathers around the name of DOUGLAS, we give some of his last words-the noblest of his life. On the evening of the first of May, 1861, he reached Chicago from Washington, and there, to an immense concourse, made his last speech, which, it has been said, "should be engraved upon the tablet of every patriot heart." I will not conceal gratification at the uncontrovertible test this vast audience presents-that what political differences or party questions may have divided us, yet you all had a conviction that when the country should be in danger, my loyalty could be relied on. That the present danger is imminent, no man can conceal. If war must come-if the bayonet must be used to maintain the constitution-I can say before God my conscience is clean. I have struggled long for a peaceful 22 (337) |