Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1890 — The Thieving Incendiary Gang In Rensselaer [ARTICLE]

The Thieving Incendiary Gang In Rensselaer

What Are We G*tng to 4e About It.’ Editor Republican.—The attempt made t>» start a fire on Wednesday evening last, is only one of a long series of crimes that the people of Rensselaer have been compelled to endure daring the last few years. Numerous fires have been started, several safes have been robbed, private houses, in •everai cases, have been broken -into and ransacked, while the small acts of stealing have been of constant occurrence. How long will the people of Rensselaer tamely submit to this state of affairs? Those who commit the acts, or at least direct them, are too shrewd, too Rkillful in crime to leive any evidence that will cause their couviction. True, in a number of small instances, acts of stealing have been brought home to individoals, but the persons suffering the loss have been content with the return of their property and do prosecutions have followed. In fact, so far as the writer knows, positive evidence has been had only in petty crimes, the penalty for which, had they been prosecuted, would have been very light and only served to mark the prosecuting witnesses as objects for the vengeance of the gang. And right here is the secret of much of the immunity that has followed these crimes. People who have evidence are afraid to avow it, lest their own buildings be burned by the revengeful villains we have in our midst It is only a question of time when a disastrous fire, with possible loss of life, will occur from the acts of these villainous wretch- « -and even murder is far from unlikely. Men desperate enough to break into the houses of sleeping citizens, will commit murder rather than be caught in the act. How long, I repeat, must our people suffer this state of things. It is morally certain who set the fire last Wednesday, and it is also morally certain that the person was a member of tha same gang that has committed nearly all the crimes that our people have suffered from during the last half dozen years. What are they going to do about it?

A CITIZEN.