HORRIBLE MURDER IN TEXAS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5397, 15 July 1878, Page 3

HORRIBLE MURDER IN TEXAS.

The Houston Telegram, of thollth of April, gives an account of the murder of a “ fullblooded young negro” named Walter' Dering, as a punishment for endeavoring to marry the daughter of a farmer named Maguire. The negro and the girl had for some time been attached to each other, aud Bering had gone to a magistrate to obtain n license to marry, when (“miscegenation” nob being a legal offence in Texas) he was. arrested on some other charge, and taken back to farmer Maguire’s neighborhood ia charge of a constable, who took him to an unoccupied house, “locked a trace-chain round his neck; drove a staple in the floor, and locked the chain to that also.” The key of the house was thengiven to Deputy-Sheriff Morris*, who, after supper,, in company with a raau named Johnson, went to the house where the negro was-thus confined. They were here met by a band of about fifteen or twenty men on hoi'seback, one of whom, drawing his shot-gun, asked for “the key of the house where that nigger is.” The key being delivered to them, the men dismounted, “hitched theirhorses,” aud ordered the deputy sheriff and his friend to leave the spot. Morriss and Johnston accordingly retreated a. short distance, “when:-they heard one of the men, who had now entered where Bering was, strike the prisoner. It was a dull lick, as if some of the party had struck or stabbed him with a knife. It was followed by the rattling of the chain on the floor. The prisoner had evidently been asleep, and the blow had been given to awaken him. The dull sound was followed by a loud exclamation of Oh !” from the prisoner. In a few seconds the shooting began with shot-guns, not pistols. There were quite a number of shots, probably fifteen in all. At every »oport the negro screamed and halloed till the last four shots, when bis voice was hushed. Immediately after the shooting the mob left, and remounting their'horses, rode away in the moonlight. Fifteen minutes later the deputy-sheriff, with Johnson, aud Justice Holland, whom * ' they called, walked over to look at the negro;They found him lying dead on the floor, his clothes on fire. Ho had in his body more than two pounds of lead. Justice Holland, with much feeling, closed the door, saying he would hold an inquest in the morning. 1