.104 
KANSAS, 
but the love of liberty has grown weak. A sad wailing comes 
up over the land — a wailing for the departed spirit of ’76. 
21 st. — Charles Dow, a young free-state man from Ohio, was 
killed to-day by Col 3man, a pro-slavery man, at Hickory Point. 
Some dispute had arisen about a claim, and Coleman had repeat¬ 
edly threatened to kill Dow. This morning Dow went to a black¬ 
smith’s shop, at some distance from Mr. Branson’s, where he 
boarded. Mr. Branson proposed he should take his gun with 
him as a means of protection, but he declined doing so. Having 
finished his business at the shop, he left to return to Mr. Branson’s; 
and when a few rods on his way, hearing the click of a gun, he 
turned around, and received the whole charge in his breast. The 
gun was a double-barrelled shot-gun, and loaded with slugs. This 
happened about one o’clock; and the murdered body was left by 
the barbarians lying by the side of the road where he fell until 
sundown. Some of the accessories then sent word to Mr. Bran¬ 
son “that a dead body was lying by the roadside.” He had 
begun to fear some ill had befallen his friend, and, at once recog¬ 
nizing the body, conveyed it to his house. Coleman is his mur¬ 
derer, while Harrison Buckley and Hargous were privy to it. 
There is no doubt that it was a deliberate act. 
Such things are winked at by our governor, no effort being 
made to bring offenders to justice. Our courts are the very 
mockery of justice. Cole McCrea, a free-state man, having, in 
self-defence, killed Malcolm Clark, is confined for months. Judge 
Lecompte packs the jury in order to get him indicted. A meet¬ 
ing was held at Leavenworth, in May, at which resolutions most 
intolerant in their character, proposing outrage and violence upon 
the persons of free-state settlers, were passed. Thirty men, as a 
committee of vigilance, were also appointed, “ to observe and 
report all such persons as shall, by the expression of abolition 
sentiments, produce disturbance to the quiet of the citizens, or 
danger to the domestic relations ; and all such persons so offend¬ 
ing shall be notified and made to leave the territory.” “ The 
meeting was ably and eloquently addressed by Judge Lecompte, 
Col. J N. Burns, of Western Missouri, and others’ Such is the 
judge the federal government has sent us — a man of partisan 
