Before proceeding to furnish details of certain classes of crimes in the slave states, we advertise the reader—­1st.  That we shall not include in the list those crimes which are ordinarily committed in the free, as well as in the slave states. 2d.  We shall not include any of the crimes perpetrated by whites upon slaves and free colored persons, who constitute a majority of the population in Mississippi and Louisiana, a large majority in South Carolina, and, on an average, two-fifths in the other slave states. 3d.  Fist fights, canings, beatings, biting off noses and ears, gougings, knockings down, &c., unless they result in death, will not be included in the list, nor will ordinary murders, unless connected with circumstances that serve as a special index of public sentiment. 4th.  Neither will ordinary, formal duels be included, except in such cases as just specified. 5th.  The only crimes which, as the general rule, will be specified, will be deadly affrays with bowie knives, dirks, pistols. rifles, guns, or other death weapons, and lynchings. 6th.  The crimes enumerated will, for the most part, be only those perpetrated openly, without attempt at concealment. 7th.  We shall not attempt to give a full list of the affrays, &c., that took place in the respective states during the period selected, as the only files of southern papers to which we have access are very imperfect.

The reader will perceive, from these preliminaries, that only a small proportion of the crimes actually perpetrated in the respective slave states during the period selected, will be entered upon this list.  He will also perceive, that the crimes which will be presented are of a class rarely perpetrated in the free states; and if perpetrated there at all, they are, with scarcely an exception, committed either by slaveholders, temporarily resident in them, or by persons whose passions have been inflamed by the poison of a southern contact—­whose habits and characters have become perverted by living among slaveholders, and adopting the code of slaveholding morality.

We now proceed to the details, commencing with the new state of Arkansas.

ARKANSAS.

At the last session of the legislature of that state, Col.  John Wilson, President of the Bank at Little Rock, the capital of the state, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.  He had been elected to that office for a number of years successively, and was one of the most influential citizens of the state.  While presiding over the deliberations of the House, he took umbrage at words spoken in debate by Major Anthony, a conspicuous member, came down from the Speaker’s chair, drew a large bowie knife from his bosom, and attacked Major A., who defended himself for some time, but was at last stabbed through the heart, and fell dead on the floor.  Wilson deliberately wiped the blood from his knife, and returned to his seat.  The following statement of the circumstances of the murder, and the trial of the murderer, is abridged from the account published in the Arkansas Gazette, a few months since—­it is here taken from the Knoxville (Tennessee) Register, July 4, 1838.