whose whole study is to
violate the law in such a manner as to evade its punishment, and who
never are in want of secret confederates to swear them out of their
difficulties, whose oaths cannot be impeached for any specific cause.
We had borne with their enormities until to suffer them any longer would
not only have proved us to be destitute of every manly sentiment, but
would also have implicated us in the guilt of necessaries to their
crimes. Society may be compared to the elements, which, although `order
is their first law,' can sometimes be purified only by a storm.
Whatever, therefore, sickly sensibility or mawkish philanthropy may say
against the course pursued by us, we hope that our citizens will not
relax the code of punishment which they have enacted against this
infamous and baleful class of society; and we invite Natchez, Jackson,
Columbus, Warrenton, and all our sister towns throughout the State, in
the name of our insulted laws, of offended virtue, and of slaughtered
innocence, to aid us in exterminating this deep-rooted vice from our
land. The revolution has been conducted here by the most respectable
citizens, heads of families, members of all classes, professions, and
pursuits. None have been heard to utter a syllable of censure against
either the act or the manner in which it was performed.

"An Anti-Gambling Society has been formed, the members of which have
pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honours for the suppression of
gambling, and the punishment and expulsion of gamblers.

"Startling as the above may seem to foreigners, it will ever reflect
honour on the insulted citizens of Vicksburg, among those who best know
how to appreciate the motives by which they were actuated. Their city
now stands redeemed and ventilated from all the vices and influence of
gambling and assignation houses; two of the greatest curses that ever
corrupted the morals of any community."

That the society in the towns on the banks of the Mississippi can only,
like the atmosphere, "be purified by storm," is, I am afraid, but too
true.

I have now entered fully, and I trust impartially, into the rise and
progress of Lynch Law, and I must leave my readers to form their own
conclusions. That it has occasionally been beneficial, in the peculiar
state of the communities in which it has been practised, must be
admitted; but it is equally certain that it is in itself indefensible,
and that but too often, not only the