Your communication of the 7th inst. in reply to my letter received. We appreciate the consideration shown and interest manifested, but earnestly petition your Honor for a fair and impartial investigation. We condemn in unqualified terms lawlessness among our people, and by no means condone the crime of Harris, nor his associates; but this crime, as black as it may be, does not justify the policemen in their savage and indiscriminate attack upon innocent and helpless people. We ask for no money consideration, and our counsel, Hon. Frank Moss, has been so advised. We are not responsible for what private individuals may do--the rights of citizenship we value above money. We ask for the conviction, and removal from the force of those officers whom we are able to prove guilty. We appeal to you, sir, as chief magistrate of this city, to give this matter special personal attention. If the guilty are shielded it will encourage the mob to repeat the same offense, the officers to commit the same deeds, and our people to prepare for self-defense in spite of law or gospel. This can have no other termination than bloodshed and butchery. This, I believe, may all be avoided by a course of simple justice. The color of a man's skin must not be made the index of his character or ability. From the many ugly threatening letters I have received I feel that my own life is not safe, but I am unwilling to purchase it by silence at the expense of my unfortunate race. We feel keenly our position, and again appeal to you for common justice. I am, dear sir, Yours, W. H. BROOKS. PERSECUTION OF NEGROES BY Roughs and Policemen, in the City of New York, August, 1900. STATEMENT AND PROOFS WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY FRANK MOSS AND ISSUED BY THE CITIZENS' PROTECTIVE LEAGUE. STATEMENT OF THE PERSECUTION. The riots and persecutions described in this pamphlet occurred mainly in the 20th Police Precinct, which is under the command of Acting Captain John Cooney, and within the jurisdiction of Inspector Walter L. Thompson. Chief William S. Devery resides in the precinct, near the scene of the disorder. The district has a large colored population, and mixed with it are many dissolute and lawless white persons. On August the 12th last a Negro named Arthur Harris was with his wife at 41st Street and 8th Avenue. He says that he left her to buy a cigar, and when he returned he found her in the grasp of a man in citizen's dress. This man was a police officer, named Robert J. Thorpe, who had arrested her, as he claimed, for "soliciting." Harris says that he did not know Thorpe was an officer, and that he attempted to rescue his wife. The policeman struck Harris with his club, and Harris retaliated with his penknife, inflicting a mortal wound, and then ran away. Thorpe was attached to the 20th Precinct, and was much liked by his comrades. Policemen thronged his home, and his funeral, on August 16th, was attended by Chief Devery, Inspector Thompson, and other officials. Harris, the murderer, had disappeared, and many policemen who were interested in Thorpe were seized with a desire of vengeance on Negroes generally. During the day of the funeral there were rumors of coming trouble, and those colored people who have illicit dealings with the police--keepers of gambling, disorderly, and badger houses--seeing the signs of coming trouble, closed their places and kept off the streets. Several officers told informants of mine that they were going to punish the Negroes that night. There...