INDIANA. 



INDIAN WAR. 



379 



commissioners submitted a report to the Gov- 

 ernor this year, from which it appears that 

 claims were allowed and approved to the 

 amount of $413,599.48. Whether the State 

 will assume the duty of indemnifying the citi- 

 zens for these losses, remains for the Legisla- 

 ture to determine. 



A law was passed by the last Legislature 

 (1867) to provide for a House of Refuge for 

 the correction and reformation of juvenile of- 

 fenders against the law. The duty of obtain- 

 ing a site for this institution, and of contract- 

 ing for the erection of suitable buildings, was 

 assigned to the Governor, and, during the year 

 1867, one hundred and twenty-one acres of 

 land were purchased near Plainfield for the 

 purpose, and about $40,000 expended in im- 

 provements thereon. The institution has been 

 in operation one year, at a cost of $20,000. 

 The subject of prisons and prison discipline is 

 one that occupies much attention, and separate 

 Houses of Correction for females are contem- 

 plated. 



Among the benevolent institutions under the 

 care of the State is the Soldiers' and Seamen's 

 Home, near Knightstown, which was original- 

 ly established by private enterprise and be- 

 nevolence, and adopted by the Legislature in 

 1867. Since it was founded, this institution 

 has aiforded relief and temporary subsistence 

 to four hundred men who were disabled in the 

 late war; and one hundred and forty-eight 

 still enjoy its advantages. A substantial brick 

 edifice has been built for the Home, while the 

 old buildings are used for an orphans' depart- 

 ment, in which are gathered eighty-six children 

 of deceased soldiers. 



By reason of some defect in the laws regulat- 

 ing criminal proceedings, a feeling is quite prev- 

 alent in the State that the processes of law 

 are neither prompt nor sure for the punish- 

 ment of crime. It is easy, by means of affi- 

 davits, true or false, to obtain numerous con- 

 tinuances and changes of venue, thus occasion- 

 ing great delay, and begetting distrust in the 

 administration of the penal laws. The conse- 

 quence has been, that resort to "Lynch law" 

 has attained an alarming frequency in the 

 State. A remarkable instance of the kind 

 occurred this year in the case of several rob- 

 bers of Express cars on the railroads in the 

 State. A gang of these desperadoes had oper- 

 ated for many months in the southern coun- 

 ties, and on the 22d of May an extensive rob- 

 bery was committed on the Jeffersonville road, 

 upon a car belonging to Adams's Express Com- 

 pany. Though the perpetrators of the rob- 

 bery were soon after arrested, and kept for 

 several weeks in custody in the city of Cincin- 

 nati, Ohio, on the 20th of July they were 

 put on board a train of cars to be taken to the 

 county of Jackson, in Indiana, for trial. An 

 armed body of the so-called Vigilance Com- 

 mittee of Seymour, Indiana, lay in wait for the 

 train, and stopped the cars by hoisting a red 

 signal on the road. They then proceeded to 



seize the prisoners, and, after extorting a con- 

 fession from them, hanged them without the 

 form of a trial. Immediately after this out- 

 rage, they published the following proclama- 

 tion: 



ATTENTION, THIEVES. 



The attention of all thieves, robbers, assassins, and 

 vagrantSj together with their aiders, abettors, and 

 sympathizers, is called to the doings of the Seymour 

 V igilance Committee last night. We are determined 

 to follow this up until all of the classes above named, 

 whether imported or to the "manor born," are 

 driven forever from our midst. Threats have been 

 made of retaliation in case we should resort to capital 

 punishment. In answer, we say : " Should one of 

 our committee be harmed, or a dollar's worth of 

 property of any honest man be destroyed, by persons 

 unknown, we will swing by the neck, until they be 

 dead^every thieving character we can lay our hands 

 on, without inquiring whether we have the persons 

 who committed that particular crime or not. This 

 applies not only to Seymour, hut along the line of 

 the two roads, and wherever our organization exists. 

 Law and order must prevail. 



By order of THE COMMITTEE. 



SEYMOTJB, INDIANA, July 21, 1868. 



In October four more of the railroad rob- 

 bers were arrested in Canada, and brought to 

 New Albany, and there lodged in jail. On the 

 night of the 12th of December, the Seymour 

 Vigilance Committee, to the number of seventy- 

 five armed men, disguised in red masks, en- 

 tered the city of New Albany, and took the 

 keys of the jail from the possession of the 

 sheriff, and proceeded to- execute summary 

 punishment upon their victims, by hanging 

 them in the corridors of the jail. 



The Legislature of 1869 met on the 5th 

 of January. Its composition was as fol- 

 lows : Senate Republicans, 33 ; Democrats, 

 17. House of Representatives Republicans, 

 57; Democrats, 43. 



INDIAN WAR. The efforts which were 

 made by the Peace Commissioners in 1867 to 

 conclude treaties with the Indian tribes of the. 

 Western plains were resumed and continued 

 through the spring and summer of 1868. The 

 three treaties made in 1867 with the Arrapa- 

 hoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Camanches, and 

 Apaches, at Medicine Lodge, were formally 

 ratified and proclaimed on the part of the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States ; but those made 

 with the Potto wattomies, Sacs, Foxes, and 

 other tribes in Kansas, with the view of remov- 

 ing them to the reservations south of that State, 

 have not been finally acted on by the Senate. 

 A treaty was concluded on the 2d of March, 

 at Washington, by Commissioner Taylor and 

 the Governor of Colorado, with the several 

 bands of the Ute Indians, the object of which 

 was the removal of those savages from the set- 

 tled portions of New Mexico and Colorado toga, 

 large reservation in the latter Territory, and 

 the establishment of two agencies among them 

 on that reservation. In May, treaties were 

 concluded by the Peace Commissioner with 

 the Brule", Sioux, Crows, northern Arrapahoes, 

 and Cheyennes, and the Ogallalla Sioux. These 

 were followed by similar compacts in the 



