Kidnapping

Missouri has been playing one of her old pranks again, and not content with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property belonging to the saints, has been engaged again in stealing human beings.

Two of our brethren, Daniel and Philander Avery, father and son, were decoyed into the neighborhood of Warsaw, about the 4th of December, and by a gang of desperadoes were forcibly taken across the Mississippi river into Missouri. Daniel Avery was taken by nine men, three of whom were Missourians, and six inhabitants of the state of Illinois. The ruffians were armed, and having forcibly seized Daniel Avery the father, put him on a horse, and tied his feet underneath. Information was received at Nauvoo, relative to the affair, by Mr. Sission Chase who made affidavit before a magistrate relative to the affair, and a constable was immediately dispatched after a person by the name of John Elliot, one of the villains, who is a schoolmaster, and resides four and a half miles below Warsaw. Mr. Elliott was brought up to Nauvoo, was tried before Aaron Johnson, justice of the peace, proven guilty and committed to the Carthage jail, to wait his trial at the county court.

In the examination, the facts were developed implicating others, who will in their own due time be brought to punishment. Testimony has since been received, which shows that a clan of those villains are associated with the Missourians to assist in killing or kidnapping Joseph Smith and others. Since their names and whereabouts has been ascertained, some of them we are informed have fled whilst officers are in pursuit of others. Col. Williams, we are informed is one of the parties engaged in this very honorable transaction.

To cap the climax, and put on the top-stone, we are really informed that this pack of renegades were taking these men for some alleged crime, committed three or four years ago, and being such great sticklers for law and justice, came without process, decoyed and stole-not negroes, but free American citizens, for fear they could not get justice. O, tempera!

O, mores!! What shall we have next-a Colonel in the Illinois militia, a stickler for patriotism, a lover of equal rights; a commander of military forces, leading forth his gallant band in the honorable employment of assisting nigger drivers to steal white men. And a schoolmaster who has come here for the purpose of 'teaching the, young idea how to shoot,' is setting his pupils a lesson that will not soon be forgotten.

Missouri talk of justice! Missouri that has plundered by wholesale-Missouri that cherishes murderers in her bosom and protects them by law-Missouri that is now living on the spoils of her own citizens, and whose hands are yet reeking with the blood of the innocent. Shall she preach up law, and seek to enforce it by stealing. As well might the Algerine pirate talk of law, or the infernals of the lower regions chide his satanic majesty for iniquity.

We would here remind our readers that thousands of horses, cattle, sheep hogs, were stolen by the Missourians, for which our brethren, as yet have obtained no redress. We should not be surprised if some of our brethren should have seen their own horses, and have taken them; they would be fools if they did not. And yet because Missouri stealing was done by wholesale, and the thieves paid for doing it by the legislature, they must of course be innocent in the eyes of the law; but a poor man who had every thing he had destroyed by those legalized robbers, and his last horse taken, if he was to recapture his stolen property, would according to the law parlance of Missouri, commit a crime worthy to be punished by the judges.-We are only surprised ourselves that the Latter Day Saints, did not arise en-masse and recover their stolen property, or take an equivalent from the robbers, when justice had been denied them by the legally constituted authorities of the land; and we know that nothing but that forebearance [forbearance] which their principles teach, could have caused them to endure silently and patiently what they have endured from the hand of Missouri.

We do not make these remarks because we suppose that Mr. Avery or his son, are guilty of any crime. We know of no such thing, we believe no such thing. We don't think that they have been guilty even of retaking their stolen property, but we do it in order to show to the world the villainy, corruption and abomination that is practized [practiced] by that state, and unless she, as a state revises her ungenerous laws, brings to justice her robbers and murderers, and makes recompense for what she has done, we shall still hold her amenable for all that is practized [practiced] by all her citizens.