Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1887 — A YEAR’S CRIMES. [ARTICLE]

A YEAR’S CRIMES.

A Catalogue of the Most Noteworthy Deeds of Blood of the Year 1886. Inriera with Malice AforethonOt, Killing in the Heat of “Passion, and Excusable Homicides. 'The Legal Executions of the Year—The Hangman’s Noose Claims a Long List of Yiciims. The Lynchings of a Twelvemonth—Mob Violence Claims a Large Number of Victims.

THE MURDER RECORD. A Ghastly Array of Crimes Against Law and Society. JANUARY. “Pug* O’Leary, of ( hicago, pleaded guilty to the murder of his sister and mistress, and was sentenced to Joliet prison for forty years. John -G. Stevens, President of the Pennsylvania Railway system in New Jersey, shot himself, owing "to financial difficulties. At Battle Creek, Mich., dead bodies of Dr. Martin White, his wife, and two children were discovered by neighbors, who forced the doors; it was believed that White killed the others and committed suicide. Jacob Reel, a wealthy farmer ■of Bellbrook, Ohio, hanged himself in his parlor because of the arrest of his eldest son for homicide. Six convicts, who escaped from the Coal Hill (Ark.) mine, were brought back by James Johnson, an old farmer, who captured the desperadoes while asleep in a haystack ; Johnson was armed with a double-bar, eled shotgun, one of the barrels being useless. John Magee was sentenced by a •London court to seven years’ penal servitude for an attempt to blackmail the Prince of Wales. James Batt, a saloon-keeper at Akron, Ohio, purchased for 5 cents the handsome wife of Newell Stratton, and lived happily with her until the law interfered. For the murder of his mother, sister, and brother, William Sheehan was hanged at Cork, Ireland ; the crime was committed in 1877 to obtain possession of some property, and Sheehan was arrested in New Zeal: nd. A party of cowboys from the Red River section, bent on havingp’a good time,” invaded Burlington, Texas; they enjoyed themselves hugely, firing promiscuously, until a posse of citizens under Sheriff Cooke drove them away, killing four of the desperadoes. A quadrangular duel at Manche ter, Ky., resulted in the death of all the participants—young farmers who quarreled about a woman of ill-repute; liquor inspired the trag•edy. Harvey Hadlock, a Portland (Me.) lad, killed himself with a revolver, in his father’s presence, rather than be sent away to school. Four members of a Polish revolutionary organization were executed at Warsaw. Jack Hanlon and Jack Crowley fought a duel at Houston, Texas, in a fit of jealousy, and both were killed.

FEBRUARY. Fines of Si each were imposed upon thirtythree Cincinnati actors who performed on Sunday. In a Waco (Tex.) hotel J. E. Graham, a St. Louis drummer, “got the drop” on a rival from Chicago, and the latter was killed; the deceased (Wm. Lamb) had declared that “a man who traveled for a St. Louis house was no good.” Chesley Chambers, a noted criminal who, armed with a club, assaulted a baggage-master and an express messenger and robbed the safe on a passenger train near Bloomington, Ind., was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. At Newcastle, Del., with the mercury in the neighborhood of zero, five thieves were lashed on their bare backs, and a forger was placed in the pillory for an hour. Mrs. Mary Branchu suicided in a sensational manner by jumping from High Bridge, New York, to the ice below, 120 feet; every bone in her body was broken. , “Unemployed” men in London besieged the authorities for relief, and this not being granted, a mob of 10,000 rioters pillaged shops, broke windows, and hustled well-to-do citizens about, destroying property to the value of 8400,000 A French merchant and his wife suicided at Monte Carlo, after heavy losses at gambling; the lady drowned herself and her husband then blew out his brains. Theodore P. Rich, of Coblcskill, N. Y., tracked his wife to St. Paul, whither she had eloped, and on coming up with her he killed her and then suicided. MARCH. Eli Bearden, of Harriston, Ark., who was twice sentenced to be hanged for the murder of .a neighbor, was acquitted on the third trial; Ms case cost the State 820, OJ. Edward Johnson, alias Allen Wright, had a quarrel with his employer, Henry C. Steadman, on’a farm near Lyons, Neb.; Steadman was killed, and John«6n was pursued and took refuge in a barn which he defended against 300 men who joined in the chase ; the desperado killed Chas. P. Johnßon and fatally wounded Edgar Everett; then the barn was set afire, and when it subsided Johnson was found partly cremated and his body riddled with ' bullets. In a quarrel over alleged cattle-stealing in the vicinity of Fort Elliott, Tex., four men belonging to the Lone St-,r Ranch were killed and two wounded. At the funeral of Frank M' lkowski, a Chicago murderer, from a Polish church, a married sister rode on the hearse to tho cemetery beside the driver. Three desperadoes confined in the Newcastle (Pa.) jail t ied the locks off their cells and escaped through a hole Bxl6 inches cut in a window.

APRIL. Louis P. Schmidt, of Freeport, 111., who had been expelled from the Knights of Labor for disclosing secrets of the order, hanged himself at Davenport, lowa. The Earl of Shaftesbury committed suicide in London by shooting himself; he was the eighth Earl of Shaftesbury, succeeding on Oct. 1, 1885, to the title on the death of his father, the noted philanthropist. Five murderers in Indian Territory escaped the gallows by a commutation of their .sentence to life imprisonment in the Detroit House of Correction; three of the partv killed a peddler for a plug of tobacco. Burmese rebels captured the British station at Meegandet, bond the garrison with cords, and massacred twenty-three persons. In Seward County, Kansas, Fritz Kupin, a half-wit'ed farm hand, assault dthewiie of his employer, Mrs. Jacob Freimuth, and killed both her and her unborn babe ; the husband was absent at the time, and when he beheld the mutilated bodies he became « raving maniac, and suicided with a shctgun; a posse of neighbors pursued and captured Kupin, who was tied by the neck to a fractious horse and dragged for miles over the prairie; the body of the wretch was left uncovered where the exhausted horse fell.

MAY. Except the Haymarket riots at Chicago (mention of which is made elsewhere), nothing specially noteworthy transpired during the month that deserves to be classified under the head of crime. JUNE. In a quarrel over politics between two phvsioians, at Stephensport, liul , cne killed "the other by cutting his throat; the d-ad man, Dr. Agee, was a brother of an ex-Lieutenant •Governor of Nebraska. Mrs. Wm. Sloane, of Stamford, Vfc., in a fit of jealousy, drowned her 4-year-old son, to spit her husband; the shock made Mr. Sloane insane. Dnrty lives were lost in an election riot in Santiago, the capital of Chili, besides many wounded In an affray between prison guards and soldiers at Bogota. United States of Colombia, one general, several officers, and thirty soldiers were killed. The New England Institute r air Buildings, at Bos- . ton, worth #3 k>,ooj, were set on fire bv a dis--5 -charged employe, and destroyed ; nine persons perished in the flames Fifty-one persons were killed in election riots in Chili. f JULY. Will Schnell, of Peru, Ind., aged 9, was sentenced to the reformatory for one hear for horse-

stealing. A roving band of Turks became so enraged at the failure of one of their number at begging supplies near Youngstown, Ohio, that they threw her infant to a bear, and held her to see the animal devour it. Howard Hines, aged 14, said while picking blackberries near Louisville. Ky., that he intended to kill some one; 1 .en turning suddenly on Samuel Dean, an 11-year-old companion, he shot him dead; the young murderer went to the city and gave himself up, saying that the shooting was accidental, A terrible story was reported from Tattnall County, Georgia, where a negress named Mary Hollenbeck provided for a picnic party by serving up a stew of human flesh, she having killed and cooked a child that was left in her charge; she confessed her crime and her infuriated auditors burned her at the stake. Willie Sells, aged 14, of Erie, Kan., was found guilty of the murder of his parents, his brother and his sist-r, and sentenced to be hanged, which under the laws of that State means imprisonment for life. In a quarrel at Washington, D. C., about an umbrella, Thomas Carter, a negro aged 70, stabbed and killed James Holmes (colored), who insisted on borrowing the article against the wishes of the owner.

AUGUST. Fred Ihde killed his sweetheart and her father, John Ruthke, at Marysville, Neb., because he was refused Miss Ruthke’s hand in marriage; he then committed suicide. Alfred Packer, a miner of Colorado, having been convicted of murdering and eating the bodies of five companions during the winter of 1878. was sentenced to forty years in the penitentiary. Barney Martin, with his wife and two children, of Weaver, A. T., started from that place for Erie, Pa., for a visit; not being heard from, a search was instituted, which resulted in the finding of the charred remains of the entire family between Vulture Mine and Phanix, Arizona; Martin was known to have had $4,0 ‘0 with him, realized from the sale of his ranch; he was waylaid by robbers, tho entire family murdered, aud the remains burned to cover the crime. Mrs. Sarah Jane Robinson, a widow, and Thomas R. Smith, a Sundayschool superintendent, were arrested at Boston, charged with poisoning eleven persons to gain insurance money. After a trial which lasted fifty-two days, and eight days of speech-making by counsel, the jury in the' anarchist trial at Chicago on the 20th pronounced the death sentence against seven of the conspirators concerned in the slaughter of the police officers at the Havmarket; one, Oscar W. Neebe, was given fifteen years’ imprisonment. Up to date seventy-six suicides were reported at Monte Carlo, owing to ruin at the gaming tables. SEPTEMBER. Edward Myers, of St. Louis, who stole 82,500 from his employer and fled to Hamilton, Ont., was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for bringing stolen money into Canada. The Bishop of Tonquin telegraphed that 700 Christians had been massacred and forty villages burned in the province of Manhoa, and that 9,000 Cnristians were perishing of hunger. The public executioner of Greece was convicted of murder and condemned to death. At Kingston, N. J., James Keevan, aged 65, was murdered while eating upper, the remains being found seated at a table with a knife and fork in the lifeless hands. George M. Bartholomew, President of tho Charter Ouk Life Insurance Company, disappeared from Hartford owing various banks and corporations 82,200,000. At Canton, China, a woman charged with poisoning her husband and three relatives, was cut up exactly into 1.000 pieces; later it was shown that she was innocent of the offense, but the people v clamoi ed for her death, which the Viceroy finally ordered.

OCTOBER. Two 16-year-old youths in France, whose heads had been turned by sensational novels, wi re sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labor for the murder of Marie C. Dout, a girl acquaintance 15 years old. The father of Wallace, lynched at Steelville. Mo., for the murder of the Lo an family, refused to care for the body, which was buried on a hill by the roadside, where the remains of a colored murderess, who had been executed according to law, were interre d years ago. NOVEMBER. In a boarding house at Newark, New Jersey, the sight of a single roast chicken for seven hungry men caused a fight with knives, in which two men were stabbed, the table was wreoked, and the supper strewn over the floor. Chas. Williams, of White River, Canada, found Richard O’Brien iu company with his wife, and proceeded to’horsewhip the interloper, but the latter shot Williams dead, then killed Williams’ aged father and mother and two little children, after which he stabbed Mrs. Williams and set the house on fire ; the woman lived long enough to tell the authorities of O’Brien’s crime, and he was arrested. Benj. Wheller, of Cleveland, 0., aged 81, was held for murdering his wife, aged 87; the couple possessed 84C0,0M), and it is believed that in a quarrel touching his wife’s will the old man strangled her; he Insisted that the deed was done by robbers. Rhodes Clements, of Havensville, Kan., suddenly became a raving maniac, killed Samuel Gordon, cut off his head, and devoured his heart, lungs, and liver; Clements was jailed. Justice Scott, of the Illinois Supreme Court, granted a supersedeas in the case of the Chicago anarchists ; as tjae court will not sit until March, the execution set for December 3 can not take placo until tho spring of 1887. Nine youths were sentenced to deatn at Sydney, N. S. W„ for committing a criminal assault upon a 15-year-old servant girl.

DECEMBER. Chas. Snodgrass, employed in a clothing house at Cynthiana, Ky., committed suicide bv taking morphine because he was accused of stealing 85 ; his aged father dropped dead when he heard the sad news. J. S. Comelison, a Louisville (Ky.) attorney, was given three years in jail for cowhiding Judge Reid at Mt. ’Sterling, who afterward took his own life from mortification. William Reed was slot and killed at English, Ind., by Ben Smith, in a dispute over the proper spelling of a word. Emily Brown, a white woman of Baltimore, was murdered by two negroes, whose so e object was to sell the corpse to a medical college. The legislators of the Seminole Indians passed a law punishing stealing by fifty lashes for the first offense and hanging for the fourth. James Howell fatally shot James Graham at Utica, N. Y., because (he said) Graham cheated him out of four dollars.