"The prisoners on Monday pleaded guilty to common assault. If Howarth, Jenne, Wilson and Kelly were guilty of anything, they were guilty of more than common assault, if ever there was a deliberate and well-planned scheme for 'doing up' any person, that plan was made in this instance, and the nail was clinched when Howarth, at Richford, paid to Kelly the fifteen dollars earnest money, which was to be followed later by the hundred and fifty when the 'job' was done. That 'job!' Such a 'job' as that! An assassin hired for the purpose, by villains blacker-hearted than himself, to go in the middle of the night, armed with a murderous weapon, to attack a defenceless and sleeping man, to 'do him up.' What does that mean? Who is initiated into the mysteries of the language? Does it mean to disable him? or does it mean to kill him? Who is safe in the discharge of his duty and in the performance of the God-given work to which every Christian man is called? "If the law protects a rumseller who has a license in his business of selling the liquid poison, should not that same law protect a man who, residing in a town where the Scott Act is in force, prosecutes liquor sellers who are dealing contrary to the laws? Let us have fair play! If the law is like a game of checkers, in which, not the best man, not the righteous cause wins, but the party wins who makes the most dexterous move, then the least we can ask is fair play. "What have we seen in the courts during the past week? One man arrested for stealing a dollar's worth of goods or so, and that man jailed for fifteen months. In contrast to this case, we see these men with their murderous schemes, deliberately planned, attempted and partially executed, we see these men condemned to one month's imprisonment with hard labor! What a farce is the law! Is it any wonder that indignation is aroused in the hearts of the conscientious and God-fearing members of the community, and that men as they meet ask each other the question, 'Why is this? Did the jury fear that they, too, might be exposed to a sudden attack of lead pipe?' "If it is cowardly to shirk an issue on a point between right and wrong, then we certainly have moral cowards here, in the district of Bedford. However, there is this to comfort the heart of the right-minded citizen; punishment does not altogether consist in the number of days spent in jail, but the disgrace to which these men have been subjected can never be wiped out nor removed. "The investigation of the case was thorough, and the crime proven unmistakably against those four men. It will undoubtedly prove a warning to others, and, we may say, to themselves also, in the future."