Says the Dallas Commercial:
Forty murders in Waller county since the war and nobody hung! The record of Waller county is a bloody one. Last fall the whole Lynch family was murdered and the house burned, and though the deed was almost unparalleled in the history of human atrocities, yet there seems to have been little effort made to detect the murderers. Next came the Finklea murder, by Crawford, a wealthy cattle man. This also was lightly passed over. Then came Johnnie Greer with his hands full of revolvers, and shot down his uncle and another man. He got off with five years in the penitentiary, the usual sentence for a man who steals a twenty dollar pony. And now comes Kirby and shoots down his victim amid a throng of worshippers as they emerge from the sanctuary, and the voice of priestly benediction and the sigh of a murdered man ascend to heaven together. Is it possible for the Globe-Democrat to paint an imaginary picture more appalling than this bloody chapter.
Our contemporary may rest assured the G.-D. will be delighted with this picture and copy his remarks with pleasure. Not only so, but it will make its readers believe that Waller county is a fair representation of the entire state.
"Forty murders in Waller county." The Tri-Weekly Herald (Marshall, TX), Tuesday, May 13, 1879, p. 1 , col. 5.