The Truckee Outrage

At last there is a fair prospect that the perpetrators of the recent outrage upon Chinese at Truckee will be punished for that atrocity.

It will be remembered that about two months ago a cabin inhabited by Chinamen was fired by incendiaries at night, and that the inmates, rushing out to save themselves, were shot down by the scoundrels who had burned their hut.

For some time no trace of the dastardly assassins was found, and presently it was intimated that the foul deed might have been committed by a rival clan of Chinese.

Several sanguinary contests having not long since occurred between rival Chinese cliques at Virginia City, this theory gained some credence at the time, and no doubt contributed to lessen the public indignation and interest.

Owing to a quarrel among themselves, however, one of the white ruffians who really committed the crime has informed upon his accomplices, and eight or nine of them have been lodged in jail.

It is intimated that several of these men have been regarded as highly respectable citizens, a fact which makes the scandal greater, and enhances the enormity of the offenses.

Great indignation is felt among the law-abiding people of Truckee against the alleged criminals and yesterday there were some threats of lynching.

We sincerely trust that all thoughts of anticipating justice will be abandoned.

Men who join in violent measures of that kind are not less guilty, as a rule, than the victims they dispatch.

Lynching is murder, twist and turn it how you will, and there never can be a justification for it in communities possessing the regular machinery of the law, and numbering honest men enough to insure its upright operation.

If these men are guilty they will assuredly be convicted in due course; but nothing can be gained by a resort to violence.