Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1913 — YOUNG MEN DRUNK; SET FIRE TO BARN [ARTICLE]

YOUNG MEN DRUNK; SET FIRE TO BARN

■ ■ • Vigilants at Kouts Drench Them With Water and Order Them Never to Return There. A Valparaiso dispatch says: Following a day spent in drinkJng and a subsequent disastrous fire which they are said to have caused, two young men of Hebron, Ind., were made to “run the gantlet,” horsewhipped and chased out of the town of Kouts, with orders never to return. The men are W. W. Carson and Ward Miller, and are said to be members of well-to-do families in Hebron. After drinking until they became intoxicated they are said to have gone into an addition to the_ J. J. Kilday livery barn to sleep. Within a few minutes the upper story of the building was in flames. The barn is located in the heart of the business section of the town and only desperate work of the bucket brigade, the town having no fire department, saved adjoining buildings. The barn, together with four horses, forty tons of hay, several sets of harness and a quantity of grain, was destroyed, entailing a loss of $2,500. After the fire the fright which posessed the residents of the town at the thought of a conflagration was succeeded by outspoken expressions of wrath against Carson and Miller. These demonstrations soon resolved themselves into the form ing of a vigilance committee which sought and captured the two men. They were stripped to their waists, drenched with icy water while “running the gantlet” between two lines of people armed with filled buckets and finally given an unmerciful horsewhipping by a score of enraged citizens.. They ran and were followed and whipped until a point one mile from Kouts was reached, where they were released and ordered to keep going and never to return.