DISTURBANCES IN WINCHESTER.— On Sunday afternoon week quite, a serious row occurred at the depot in Winchester between a party of Irish laborers who had arrived there to go to work on the Strasburg railroad and some unruly negroes of the town. The reports which first reached us of the difficulty, greatly magnified the affair, and in order to correct these misrepresentations, we copy the following from the Times of last Wednesday:
“On Saturday night last, a number of negroes waylaid an Irish citizen near the Cemetery, and beat him in an outrageous manner. Upon this fact being ascertained on Sabbath, there was some excitement upon the part of our Irish citizens. Later in the day, a train arrived from Harper’s Ferry, brought some 150 Irish laborers, to work on the Winchester and Strasburg railroad. They had been at the depot but a little while, receiving welcomes from their acquaintances, when a squad of negroes, to the number of about one hundred, gathered about the depot, and indulged in taunts and jeers towards the Irish. Finally blows were passed, which resulted in a general melee and the “cleaning out” of the negroes. A number of pistol shots were fired from both sides, one of which took effect in the fleshy portion of a negroe’s leg, inflicting very little damage however. There was also many bloody noses, damaged craniums, &c. The negroes were undoubtedly in the wrong, instigated doubtless by that cowardly class of white men who are even now endeavoring to persuade them that the Conservatives design enslaving again. Our colored population ought to see the impropriety of indulging in such conduct as exhibited on Sabbath. They, and they alone, are bound to be the sufferers.
