# Savannah Morning News, 15 March 1891, page 1: A city in arms: the New Orleans prison killings

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/clippings/clip-savannah-morning-news-1891-03-15-p1/

The Savannah Morning News front page of 15 March 1891 reports the killing of eleven prisoners at the New Orleans parish prison and, in a background section, that the jury had acquitted six defendants and returned a mistrial on three.

Front page of The Morning News, Savannah, Sunday, 15 March 1891. The headline, "A City in Arms," is followed by decks that include "Thousands in a Mob. Its Leaders Prominent in Business and Law." The report of 14 March says a crowd killed eleven Italian-born prisoners in the New Orleans parish prison and that two of the bodies were hung.

A section headed "The Trial and the Acquittal" says the jury had acquitted six of the defendants and returned a mistrial as to three, and alleges, without proof on the page, that the jury had been corrupted. The paper's headline and text carry anti-Italian framing and treat the victims as guilty although it reports the verdicts.

That language is not quoted here. The page is filed as a record of how the lynching was reported in the South. It is not a neutral account of the events and is not used as a source of facts about the victims.

## Sources

- Library of Congress, Chronicling America: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn86063034/1891-03-15/ed-1/?sp=1
- Library of Congress OCR text of this page: https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/gu/batch_gu_columbo_ver02/data/sn86063034/00414182045/1891031501/0625.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1