Negro Jury Convicts Two Murderers in North Carolina
TWELVE simple-minded but honest negroes, a majority of whom could not read or write, set an example in North Carolina the other day, which the New York juries that acquitted MacFarland and gave the elegant Stokes four years at Sing Sing should take seriously to heart. A month ago, a white boy was murdered by two negroes. They were arrested and brought to trial before a jury composed entirely of colored men. After hearing the evidence, the unlettered jurors retired and in an hour returned with a verdict pronouncing the prisoners guilty of murder in the first degree. The judge, in pronouncing sentence, took very proper occasion to draw a contrast between those twelve negroes, representing honest ignorance, and the twelve white men at New York, representing dishonest intelligence. Evidently the interests of justice have not suffered in the South by admitting the freedmen to the jury box.