NINETEEN MURDERS AND NO TRIAL.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 182, 8 January 1875, Page 3

NINETEEN MURDERS AND NO TRIAL.

[From the Galveston Mercury.] Two families —the Taylors and Snttons are carrying on a notable vendetta in DeWitt and adjoining counties, Texas. It is related that the feud between the two families originated eighteen years ago in Alabama, and has been waged with varying rigor ever since. A member of one of the families killed a member of the other in Alabama, and shortly after moved to "Western Texas to settle down in peace among the Comanches and still fiercer border whites. In a little while the other family came and settled in the vicinity, but without knowing they were coming so near their enemies. Soon hostilities were renewed, and from first to last there have been nineteen murders among them. It was a war of extermination, but the more killed the faster the famines and their partisans increased. There was a Sutton clan and a Taylor clan, and robbery and murder were carried on wholesale between them. At last 1000 to 1200 people became involved in the family feud, and several Texas counties were constantly disturbed by their warlike operations. Finally, it became evident that the Taylors and Suttons would never be able to settle their difficulties, as they had repeatedly violated treaties of peace arranged by umpires and agreed to by themselves. The state government had long been wrestling with the question, and did notappear to have thepowertosettleit. There wasastrong enough interest amongthe people to counteract any Sheriff's force that could be raised, or any justice that might be adjudged the offenders by the courts. The Sheriff was impotent, the courts were rendered ineffective by prejudiced juries, and the jails could not keep a prisoner when they got hold of one, They were

broken open for escape or to carry out the requirements of lynch law. At present the Sutton party are stated to be largely in the ascendent, and they ought to make short work of the Taylors, if left to themselves. But the Governor has lately taken active measures to suppress this remarkable vendetta. The disturbers of the State's peace are arrested as fast as they can be found, and when they are caught several companies of militia are placed on guard over them. The last one arrested was William Taylor, for killing William Sutton some months ago. They got him safely in jail, but they will have to go several counties away to get a jury to try him, if they ever bring him into a court room. Some of the quieter people who do not belong to either side of this Taylor-Sutton question, want a more vigorous police law, with such features as the suspension of the habeas corpus, assessment and collection of monies from counties to defray the expenses of preserving the peace in them, and power given to the Governor to declare martial law. They think nineteen murders and no murder trial is quite enough of that sort of thing.