Except beneath the ice of death. To be opened sometime later, When the corpse on the board again is heard But who was the scold? But Ah, hapless wight, No longer worry and bother; go to your home and meet your doom But what were these cases of brutality and misery, to that of Elizabeth Smith, at which, at the mere recollection, the blood curdles and the brows contract in bitter denunciation of the fiendish legal outrage? This poor woman was an indentured servant to James Kinkaid. She was convicted of larceny, and her judgment was that she receive fifteen lashes on her bare back well laid on, that she pay a fine of fifteen shillings and fivepence, make restitution of the stolen goods, pay the costs of prosecution, and be committed to jail until the penalties are complied with. A woman under the lash! Think of it, who can, without a boiling of his blood in indignation? But this is not all. This poor woman was imprisoned for two years, and at the expiration of that period, the court decreed that she should serve her master two years beyond her indenture, to recompense him for the time she had lost in jail! Nor is this all; for it appears that, at the session of the court which released her from the confinement of the jail and restituted her to a prolonged bondage under a heartless and mercenary master at this very court, a grand inquest of the body of the county, being called upon to inspect the jail, in which this unhappy woman had been imprisoned for two years, they, under oath, report it "not fit nor sufficient to confine any person in without endangering the life of any person so confined!" But what cared a people, who could endure the whipping at the public post, of a woman, naked to the waist, for her milder suffering however prolonged in a filthy, noisome, pig-sty cell, or under the roof of a brutal master? -Reveries of a Rambler from Greensburg to Hannastown, in 1871. A transcript from the Docket of the Quarter Sessions of Westmoreland county, containing the record of this outrage, is given herewith, ad verbam, ad literam -- The King V OCTOBER SESSIONS, 1775. Elizabeth Smith Felony (true Bill) Defendant being arraigned pleads Guilty & submits to the Court. Judgment that the said Elizabeth Smith be taken this afternoon (being the eleventh instant) between the hours of three & five & there to receive fifteen Lashes on her Bare Back well laid on, that she pay a fine of eighteen shillings & five pence to his Honour the Governor that she make restitution of the Goods stolen that she pay the Costs of prosecution & stand committed until complied with. At a Private Sessions held at the House of Charles Foreman in the County of Westmoreland on the eleventh day of October Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred & Seventy five before Robert Hanna, William Lochry, James Cavet & Samuel Sloan Esquires Justices of the same Court. Upon the application of James Kinkaid to this Court setting forth that his servant Elizabeth Smith had been confined in the Gaol for Felony a considerable time from his service, whereby he was put to great Charges & expenses and lost the labor and Service of the said Servant for a considerable time And Praying the Court to adjudge the said servant to serve him & his assigns such reasonable time in consideration of the premises as to the Court should seem meet. It is considered by the Court and ordered that the said Servant Elizabeth Smith do serve her said Master James Kinkaid and his assigns for the space & time of two years from and immediately after the expiration of her time by Indenture, in full satisfaction and recompence of the Charges, expenses and loss of time aforesaid, Westmoreld. County ss. We the Grand Inquest for the Body of this County Being Called upon by the Sheriff of the County To view the Gaol of this County and upon Examination we find the said Gaol is not sufficient to confine any Person in without endangering the life of any Person so confined. Joseph Beelor, foreman. For a thousand years, the crimes of woman To balance the wrong and the treatment inhuman, -1775 AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. As soon as the news of the Battle of Lexington reached the head of the Ohio, the civil strife between the partisans of Pennsylvania and Virginia for the possession of Southwestern Pennsylvania ceased -the people generally joining hands at once in opposition to the Mother Country: in which there is reason to believe an aminosity ingrown with their organisms unconsciously played a stronger part than found expression in their patriotic resolutions; for a great majority of the population of this county at that time were of Scottish and Irish descent, the subjugation of their respective countries accordingly rankling in their blood. At the several meetings, held, on the 16th of May, 1775, at Hannastown and Pittsburgh, the resolutions passed amounted almost to a declaration of independence. those passed at the Hannastown meeting, written, doubtless, by Arthur St. Clair, a few years hence to be a Major General in the service of the United Colonies in their assertion, containing the following remarkable paragraph: St. Clair, be it remembered, being a Scotchman by birth "3d. That should our country be invaded by a foreign enemy, or should troops be sent from Great Britain to enforce the late arbitrary acts of Parliament, we will cheerfully submit to military discipline, and to the utmost of our power resist and oppose them, or either of them, and will coincide with any plan that may be formed for the defence of America in general and Pennsylvania in particular." Of the Virginians who participated in the meeting at Pittsburgh, William Crawford, John Neville, and John Gibson commanded Virginia regiments during the revolutionary war. Not only rose the Colonies, Unto them in the distance done But Scotland, to avenge her wrong, And Erin, to return the blow Rose, in the remembrance of the sod, For, sow the seeds of good or evil, - 1780 THE SCALP PREMIUM. At three several times, the governors of Pennsylvania offered rewards for the scalps of Indians, men, women, and children: in 1756, during the French war, when the Indians generally were allied with the French; in 1764, before the close of the Indian war, known as Guyasootha's or Pontiac's war; and in 1780, during the latter part of the Revolution when the frontier presented almost daily deadly encounters between individuals and armies in their struggle for supremacy in the Little World through which runs the River of Blood without and within. For, disguise the fact as we may, in our congratulatory grimaces before one another, the idea that has been expressed in our actions toward the aborigines of this continent from first to last has been extirpation. The rates offered, in 1756, were "for the Scalp of every male Indian of above Twelve Years old, one hundred and thirty dollars, and for the Scalp of every Indian Woman, Fifty Dollars," as the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, the Honorable Robert Hunter Morris, declared, as reported in the Colonial Records, vol. vii, pages 74-6; in 1764-"for the Scalp of every Male Indian Enemy above the age of 10 Years produced as evidence of their being killed, 154 pieces of Eight, and for the Scalp of every female Indian Enemy above the Age of 10 Years produced as Evidence as afores..., 50 pieces of Eight," as set forth in the Minutes of the Council, presided over by the Lieutenant Governor, the Honorable John Penn, and reported in the Colonial Records, vol. ix, page 189; while, in the depreciated currency of the Revolution, the premium offered for an Indian scalp rose to one thousand dollars: as the President of the Council, the Honorable Joseph Reed, stated to Colonel Samuel Hunter in these words "The Council would & do for this Purpose authorize you to offer the following Premiums for every male Prisoner whether white or Indian if the former is acting with the latter 1500 Dollars and 1000 for every Indian Scalp," as printed in the Pennsylvania Archives, vol. viii, page 167. For the massacre of the Moravian Indians at Gnadenhütten by the Whites, under Colonel David Williamson in February, 1782, and the horrible torture at the stake of Colonel William Crawford in June of the same year, let this serve as an introduction. What but a weaker wolf, is he, Go, wilder wolf; for, since the light 1781 LOCHRY'S LAMENT. "Fort Pitt, December 3d, 1781. "Sir, I am sorry to inform your Excellency that this Country has got a severe stroke by the loss of Colonel Lochry and about one hundred (tis said) of the best men of Westmoreland county, including Captain Stockely & his Company of Rangers. They were going |