Chapter XLIX - Page 2

drawing his pistol knocked him down and rifled
his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal dared give no alarm,
as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he made any noise or
exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So effectually was he
frightened that he made no complaint, until his friends forced him.
Yesterday a warrant was issued, but the culprits had disappeared.

This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the common reputation of
being a burglar, a highwayman and a desperado. It was said that he had
several times drawn his revolver and levied money contributions on
citizens at dead of night in the public streets of Virginia.

Five months after the above item appeared, Williams was assassinated
while sitting at a card table one night; a gun was thrust through the
crack of the door and Williams dropped from his chair riddled with balls.
It was said, at the time, that Williams had been for some time aware that
a party of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his life; and it was
generally believed among the people that Williams's friends and enemies
would make the assassination memorable--and useful, too--by a wholesale
destruction of each other.

It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull during the next
twenty-four hours, for within that time a woman was killed by a pistol
shot, a man was brained with a slung shot, and a man named Reeder was
also disposed of permanently. Some matters in the Enterprise account of
the killing of Reeder are worth nothing--especially the accommodating
complaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The italics in the
following narrative are mine:

MORE CUTTING AND SHOOTING.--The devil seems to have again broken
loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and knives gleam in our
streets as in early times. When there has been a long season of
quiet, people are slow to wet their hands in blood; but once blood
is spilled, cutting and shooting come easy. Night before last Jack
Williams was assassinated, and yesterday forenoon we had more bloody
work, growing out of the killing of Williams, and on the same street
in which he met his death. It appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of
Williams, and George Gumbert were talking, at the meat market of the
latter, about the killing of Williams the previous night, when
Reeder said it was a most cowardly act to shoot a man in such a way,
giving him "no show." Gumbert said that Williams had "as good a
show as he gave Billy Brown," meaning the man killed by Williams
last March. Reeder said it was a d---d lie, that Williams had no
show at all. At this, Gumbert drew a knife and stabbed Reeder,
cutting him in two places in the back. One stroke of the knife cut
into the sleeve of Reeder's coat and passed downward in a