A MAN HUNT IN CALIFORNIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4519, 14 September 1875, Page 3

A MAN HUNT IN CALIFORNIA.

The San Francisco Chronicle gives at some length an interesting story which seems to show that, in addition to their passion for pursuing all sorts of ordinary game, Americans develop an occasional taste for man hunting, and that a man need not be a criminal nor an outlaw to qualify himself for affording sport on his fellow creatures. John Barton Horan, who said he was a Canadian, went from Richmond, Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia, to get a job of carpentering. There was no work for him in town, and he resolved to walk back to Richmond. He begged a plug of tobacco to subsist on during the journey, and was about to start, when a man took pity on him, and gave him a job. He proved himself to be an excellent carpenter and a fast workman, but he conceived an idea that the other men were trying to poison him. So he left his work and started on his tramp. He proposed to pass the Chilhowee mountains by the Hiwassee clap. He was seen washing his clothes >y the Hiwassee river. Two men who rad not been trained in the art of ninding their own business accosted him, ind Horan resented their meddling with ris concerns and interrupting his washing. He had with him a hatchet, and threatened ;o “ make buzzax-ds’ meat of them ” if hey did not go away and let him done. He drove them off with the hatchet, ind they alarmed the country round with the ■eport that there was a madman. in the Dhilhowee mountains washing his clothes in he Hiwassee. The people armed themselves ,vith rifles and shotguns and pistols and knives md wont hunting for a lunatic. The citizens’ rrigade found Horan asleep high on a precince by the side of the river under a shelving ■ock. They woke him by hallooing, and at a listance demanded his surrender. He braulished his hatchet, and refused to comply, bating that he had done no crime to he wrested for, and would not submit. That renark would seem to have been sane and sensible mough, but the dignity of the hunting rabble vas now insulted. Three of them fired on the )oor fellow. The balls took deadly effect, passing hrough his breast and abdomen. The hatchet ell from his grasp, and he was surrounded by ris hunters. He took a prayer book from his rocket and desired one of his murderers to ■ead from it; and the murderer read while lohn Barton Horan’s soul was passing out of ris body. Before dying he stated that he had i wife in New York, and desired that she be uformed of how he had been butchered while ■esting, tired and foot-sore, on the banks of ;he Hiwassee. The people buried him in the ;ap, and returned in peace to their homes. A more exciting hunt never occurred in that rart of the country. It was more enjoyed hau any wild cat or mad dog chaso that could re started. It is not thought likely there will re any legal investigation of the barbarous iff air.