A REVIVAL IN THE ROCKIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2319, 21 May 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

A REVIVAL IN THE ROCKIES.

RELIGIOUS LYNCHERS

The town of Fielding or Fieldeu lies in a willow bottom near the Rocky Mountains. It contains between one and two hundred inhabitants, and is comparatively new and obscure. A gust of religious enthusiasm struck the town during the fall, and as the piety interfered wit.h only the more devlish pleasures of the community, there have been few backsliders. Some of the men went back from casino and old maid to poker, while the elect and beautified resumed only euchre. A few ni<rhts ago Ned Rice, as he was known in Fielding, came into town profusely armed, and tried to start a game. A convert approached him and said—"Mr Rice, we are farysees or fana-tics, and we like you as an old friend-who has took away or le;t money here ; but don't fetch noo'juminto this here shrine : d'ye hear me?" Ned thereafter joined in the singing with a good voice, hut he disturbed the neophytes by keeping time with his feet. After the meeting he joined in the conversation, but was mystified by the change in tho manner of the community, of whom a large majority had been converted, and he felt he owed somebody a grudge. He picked up a man's coat, and quoted Scripture to prove that he ought to give him his cloak also. He invited an unmarried "sister" to go to the Palace Hotel shanty and have a -meat-offering and drink-offering, " and," he said, " I'll take asmoke-offering." He addressed the ladies as seraphims and the men as cheru-bums. Finally he got up a cheap game with some of the unregenerate. There was no excitement in it. He drank freely and swore volubly. He became ugly and quarrelsome and called a man a liar. The man forgot that he was converted, and knocked Ned down. All in a moment Ned jumped to his feet and shot the man through the head. Two or three bystanders seized, disarmed, and bound him. A watch was placed over him, and he sat tied in a chair all night. The next morning a meeting was hold, and the debating was long and serious. It was decide! that Ned Rice ought to die. The brother of the murdered man tried to shoot Ned, but the wiser men decided that he ought to have time to prepare himself. His hands being partially freed, he was givon a Testament, which he read with great interest, but without Rentiraent. He spoke freply, but wih unrepentant. He said, "I'll play Judge Lynch there a game of anything, whether I'm shot or hung. I'd rather be shot." Some of the brethren were in favour of shooting him, but somo of the spiritual shepherds said that hanging was the usual deliberate way of sending a man above. Vainly he offered his horse and all his money to the church if they would let die drunk. They offered him some wine, but he refused it, saying that he would never go back on "the old stuff." It was decided to hang him by moonlight. There were oue or two cottonwoods growing near the stream, and a limb was braced "sufficiently to hold tho weight. Before he left the palace several of the ladies sang a hymn, in which Ned joined. Several of them shed tears, and he donated his horse to them for the purchase of hymn books. At the cottonwoods he was seated ou his horse with a rope around his neok. Another hymn was sung, Ned adding his baritone. One of the men then prayed for the soul of the man who was about to ascend by descending, and another man delivered an address. Ned Rice was asked whether he had anything to say, and he replied that after all expenses were paid out of his own pccket he wished the balance shoald go toward p lying the expenses of the man whom he had shot. Then a low, mournful hymn was sung, one of the brethren pricked Ned's horse, and he swung off and died 10 Blow music, j Rooky Mountain News,