COMMUNICATION FROM HEMPSTEAD.
Hard Lines of a News Correspondent Between Two Local Factions.
To The News.
HEMPSTEAD, Tex., une 14. — Your correspondent from this place doubtless has discovered some law unknown to the writer. In one part of his communication published in your paper of yesterday he intimates that if not unlawful it is radically wrong for deputy sheriffs to carry arms, while he approves and justifies the city marshal and his force in committing the same breach of moral law. This smacks very much of favoritism, of which breach of consistent fairness, impartiality and disinterested motives a NEWS reporter should not be gulty, as readers of your paper expect fairness in all things.
The inference deducible from the publication referred to is that the two opposing parties are the sheriff and his deputies, the city marshal and his followers. If this be the case will your reporter inform the public why he condemns the one and justifies the other?
The opinion of the thinking and disinterested citizens of this place is that unless some steps are taken by Governor Ross to disarm men who walk the streets with shotguns and six-shooters, whether officer or citizen, who live in this place, was inevitable; that is, if your correspondent of yesterday is posted.
I am informed by Sheriff McDade that the reason given by Marshal Pinckney for appointing several assistants was that he wanted as many as he (McDade) had. Why did he want them? Was it because he expected to force war on the sheriff and his deputies, or was it to regulate them?
The good people of the vicinity are tired of the tone of the communications of your reporter. It is calculated to bring about a collision between the contestants that should be avoided.
It is a mystery to many why the city marshal and his friends should be so pronounced against the sheriff and his friends, as inferred from the letter of the correspondent of yesterday, for certainty. The sheriff and at least some of his friends have in days past befriended some of the other party, when griendship was worth more than dollars and cents.
Hoping that you will use your influence to have your correspondent cast off his war paing and don the garb of the peacable quill driver, I run, yours truly.
H. M. BROWNE
P. S. — I write this by request of parties who want peace and quiet, with the request that you publish the same. H. M. B.
"COMMUNICATION FROM HEMPSTEAD.", Galveston Daily News, Tuesday, June 19, 1888, p. 8, col. 6.
(Mr. H. M. Browne was a respected attorney in Hempstead and was engaged in the murder trial of Dick Springfield and Jack McDade.)