Letter from the Scene of the Outrage

We copy from the Washington Union of yesterday the following extracts from a statement furnished by a responsible citizen of Maryland, (Deputy Attorney General Henry May, we presume,) who visited the scene of the massacre shortly after its occurrence, and urged the authorities to the performance of their duty.


“The scene of the murder was about two miles and a half to the right of Christiana, descending from Lancaster to Philadelphia. That neighborhood is said to be filled with people, who are said to be the worst sort of abo litionists. Here, since the passage of the fugitive law, all the runaway slaves from the neighborhood of Wrightsville, Lancaster, and other places, where they can find no employment from the German population, have congregated, as to an asylum, as well as a place of subsistence, and here they are cherished, protected and worked by these disinterested abolitionists.

“It was in the country-town of this same Chester county (West Chester) that an abolition convention assembled and proclaimed armed resistance to the constitution of the United States and the laws of Congress on the subject of slavery. These facts I derive from the most respectable citizens of Pennsylvaaia, residing near this treasonable region. At Christiana I went among the small groups of people to make various inquiries. Those whom I addressed seemed to know but little of the facts of this dreadful tragedy, or to be indisposed to communicate them. Such heartless apathy shocked me. I stated to them how disgraceful it was that no one had been to look after the missing or to arrest the murderers. They answered that this could not be done without danger to life. I was the more amazed to learn that no officer of the law was there, or had been there since the transaction. I asked for the Marshal and the Sheriff, or their deputies, or for even the constable of the precinct. No one [illegible], although thirty-eight hours had elapsed, and the bloody deed was known in Philadelphia and throughout the country. I found it was idle to expect that the people of Chester county, or that neighborhood, or their local officers, would take any steps to vindicate the outraged laws and constitution, and I at once proceeded to Philadelphia, where I found the United States authorities ready and willing to do their duty, and I mention, also, with pleasure, the fact that Mr. Read, the attorney of the city, was willing, as far as it was in his power, to facilitate the efforts making to arrest the criminals.

“But it was strange the nothing has reached the United States officers in Philadelphia but vague rumors, until I called on them and made my statement of what I had learned. They acted at once, promptly, and went with me at once before the United States Judges then in Philadelphia, where the requisite authority was obtained. I am now satisfied that, so far as the agencies and authorities of the United States which has been thus disgracefully trodden under foot by a mob of negroes and their white allies, tolerated and submitted to by the gross and culpable apathy of numerous citizens of Pennsylvania, who have signally failed to protect ther fellow-citizens of the Union from outrage and murder, or even to vindicate their own laws against such atrocious crimes, by the prompt arrest of the guilty parties. Such apathy and neglect of the obligations of justice are in my opinion but one step removed from the active participation in the crimes, and show, if not a total want of the qualities of good citizens, at least a secret sympathy with abolitionism – that demon of discord which is now sapping the foundation of our blessed Union.”