ed from the violence of the mob
there were several patients treated at the hospital during the night who
had been with the rioters and had been struck by stray bullets or
injured in scuffles. None of this class were hurt to any extent. They
got their wounds dressed and went out again.

+WAS CHARLES A DESPERADO?+

The press of the country has united in declaring that Robert Charles was a
desperado. As usual, when dealing with a negro, he is assumed to be guilty
because he is charged. Even the most conservative of journals refuse to
ask evidence to prove that the dead man was a criminal, and that his life
had been given over to lawbreaking. The minute that the news was flashed
across the country that he had shot a white man it was at once declared
that he was a fiend incarnate, and that when he was killed the community
would be ridden of a black-hearted desperado. The reporters of the New
Orleans papers, who were in the best position to trace the record of this
man's life, made every possible effort to find evidence to prove that he
was a villain unhung. With all the resources at their command, and
inspired by intense interest to paint him as black a villain as possible,
these reporters signally failed to disclose a single indictment which
charged Robert Charles with a crime. Because they failed to find any legal
evidence that Charles was a lawbreaker and desperado his accusers gave
full license to their imagination and distorted the facts that they had
obtained, in every way possible, to prove a course of criminality, which
the records absolutely refuse to show.

Charles had his first encounter with the police Monday night, in which he
was shot in the street duel which was begun by the police after Officer
Mora had beaten Charles three or four times over the head with his billy
in an attempt to make an illegal arrest. In defending himself against the
combined attack of two officers with a billy and their guns upon him,
Charles shot Officer Mora and escaped.

Early Tuesday morning Charles was traced to Dryades Street by officers who
were instructed to kill him on sight. There, again defending himself, he
shot and killed two officers. This, of course, in the eyes of the American
press, made him a desperado. The New Orleans press, in substantiating the
charges that he was a desperado, make statements which will be interesting
to examine.

In the first place the _New Orleans Times-Democrat_, of July 25, calls