Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1911 — Hugh Burns Raised Cain In Keener Township Sunday. [ARTICLE]

Hugh Burns Raised Cain In Keener Township Sunday.

Hugh Burns, the brick mason, whose wife is a daughter of David D. Gleason, of Keener township, and a cousin- of Senator Halleck, raised a big disturbance at the Gleason home last Sunday. According to Mr. Gleason he came there drunk and after cursing and threatening them all, made an attack on Mr. Gleason. The latter knocked him down twice, but broke his left hand in doing it .Burns had gone to Thayer on the milk train Sunday morning and is supposed to have procured his booze there. He hired an automobile and went'to the Gleason home. After he had been thumped quite thoroughly he left and went to Shelby, where Senator Halleck went in response to a telephone message from his uncle, Mr. Gleason. Burns undertook to cause a racket with Senator Halleck and would have done so if he had not been restrained. Constable Steve True, of Keener township, was given a warrant for Burns’ arrest and apprehended him near Thayer, just before the milk train arrived there, and brought him to Rensselaer, expecting to have him locked up, but Sheriff Hoover refused to lock him up, claiming that he could not legally do so without commitment papers. Senator Halleck wanted Burns locked up, but the sheriff refused to accept him as a prisoner without commitment papers, and stated that he was acting on the advise of the county attorney. Bums was released in Rensselaer and hired an auto to take himself and the constable back to DeMotte. They arrived there about 11 o’clock and Burns proceeded to walk to the home of his wife on the Gleason farm. "He is alleged to have- forced an entrance through a window and thus entered the house. His frightened wife escaped from the other side of the house and ran across the fields to her father’s house, a half m>le away. She got her father and they returned together to the house. Mr. Gleason took his shotguif and after the/ arrived at the place, Burns, who was by that time quite sober, edged around and took the gun away from his father-in-law, and after getting all the shells there were on the placp, pulled out, and they think went to the woods.

Mr. Gleason had again telephoned for Senator Halleck and accompanied by his wife, the latter went to the Gleason home, arriving a little while after Burns bad gone. Senator and Mrs. Halleck remained all night, but Burns did not show up and he did not come to DeMotte for his trial in Squire Fairchild’s court Monday. Since then his whereabouts are unknown, but he wrote a letter to the contractor for the new depot, asking to havfe his last week’s wages sent to DeMotte. Burns is out of jail on W bond of S2OO, haring been bound over to the circuit court on a charge of wife desertion. His attorneys succeeded in getting him out of two other scrapes, one seeking to place him under a peace bond. It looks like therft was plenty of cause tohifve him under b&nd, judging from his Sunday night escapade. Burns is said to be a first class mechanic, and while working here is supposed to have earned $7 per day. According to Mrs. Burps, however, he has worked but little for several years and has generally spent his money for liquor and in gambling. She charges that for a long time she worked as a stenographer in Chicago and supported herself and him, and that finally (his became unbearable and she now declares that she wishes for some wpy to be safe from him. Mr. Gleason states that the desertion charge wa* brought as a means to procure \ divorce and the assurance that Burns would not bother his daughter a*afn. Other and more serious charges are now apt to be brought against Burns, and it is said that his brother-in-law, who is his bondsman, is apt to asked to be relieved from further responsibility.