Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1884 — SOUTHERN. [ARTICLE]

SOUTHERN.

In a business dispute at Nashville, Tenn., ex-United States Marshal William Spence shot and killed his son-in-law, Ed SWheat Frank Slagel,,who murdered two men named Adair, for the purpose of robbery, was hanged at Somerset, Ky., in presence of the mother of his victims. Ben Thompson, the notorious Texas desperado, who, with his companion, King Fisher, was killed in the Vaudeville Theater, at San Antonio, had a big funeral at Austin, his home, where he leaves a family and property valued at $16,000. The Coroner’s investigation revealed the fact that the two men were slain by the police and theater employes. Thompson, a year before, had in the same building murdered Jack Harris, the proprietor of the place, and on the present occasion went to the theater for the purpose of raising a row. From the moment of his entrance to the death scene he was a doomed man. His personal bravery was herculean, arid his caution equaled his courage. He and his game companion were crowded down by the police and theater employes and butchered like stuck pigs. It is the only way m which he could have been killed. He had thirteen authenticated deaths to his score. Fisher was the younger man, but the greater desperadb. His murders were innumerable, and in every town on the Rio Grande his name was a synonym of fear. Fisher's remains were taken to Uvalde and interred. A dispatch from there informs us that “the funeral was the largest ever seen In Uvalde,” and that the desperado “would undoubtedly have been elected the next Sheriff.” An explosion in the Flat-Top mine at Pocahontas, Va., killed 150 men and destroyed all the structures on the surface, houses 200 feet from the mines being overturned, and the fan-house and fan entirely wrecked. Miss Eliza, eldest daughter of Gov. Thompson, of South Carolina, died from burns received ten days ago, while reading at an open grate.