This Being Saturday We See
Markets At The Towns We Go Through; At Habwood And Flatonia Especially
Was This Noticeable.
The population seemed almost altogether negro.
I
observed a negro and his wife, well dressed, riding on horseback in the
old English pillion style; another negro and his wife, and about twelve
children, in a capacious kind of wagon-buggy, and many negroes and
negresses, the latter dressed in white and gay colours, standing at
their pretty verandahed cottages.
We now pass a spot where a train was stopped and the passengers robbed
some time ago, by Jesse and Frank Jeames and the Ford Brothers. The
modus operandi is for all the men to be secreted but one, who stands
on the line holding up a red flag which indicates danger; the engineer
then stops and the men spring aboard; some hold revolvers to the heads
of the engineers, and others go through the train and rob the
passengers. The robbers shout out "hands up," and one man points his
weapon at the passenger's head, whilst another rifles his pockets. If a
passenger fails to hold up his hands he is shot down. A passenger on the
Northern Prairies told me of a fellow passenger, who under such
circumstances having a revolver, aimed at a robber and pulled the
trigger, but it missed fire, and he was instantly shot down. But these
attacks are now more rare, and the officials are more prepared for them.
Sometimes the robbers get on board the train as passengers, and act
suddenly in concert.
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