Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1916 — CHICKEN THIEVES. CAUSE SUNDAY HUNT [ARTICLE]

CHICKEN THIEVES. CAUSE SUNDAY HUNT

Gun Play Was Indulged In and Excited Fyeigners Played Important Part in Game. , Everett Halstead and Randolph Wright were the active agents in the arrest of two foreigners on a charge of chicken stealing. The men are Charley Mose, an Austrian, and Mike Biboli, a Polander. Some uncertainty entails as to whether the men are guilty of chicken stealing and, in fact, Mr. Halstead is so certain that Mose is not implicated in the chicken stealing that he and his brother, David L., for whom Mose has been working, procured his release from jail Mionday afternoon. The two foreigners have been working for D. L. Halstead on his farm across the Newton county line. Chicken stealing has been going qp in Newton township, but the quantities stolen have not been large and until recently not much attention was paid to it. Sunday morning a Russian who lives in Newton township found a number of chickens with their legs tied together in the road. Four chickens were loose and eleven were tied. He reported the find to Everett Halstead and Randolph Wright. The chickens were identified as belonging to Will McKinney. Among them were several setting hens that went at once to their nests when taken to the McKinney homq. A little later the Russian who had lost 18 chickens through theft, reported that when he went to pursue the men whom he thought had stolen the chickens that one of them pointed a gun at him and ordered him to vamoose. He did so, but secured the services of Mr. Halstead, who keeps a supply of artillery on hands and who distributed his small arms among trusty aides and set out to hunt for the supposed thieves. Suspicion rested on Mose and Biboli and the men went to a stack of straw near the shack where the two men keep hatch. They were in hiding at the straw stack and had dozed off to sleep when Mose and Biboli, armed with shotguns, approached them and leveled the guns at them. Everett awakened and got busy with an argument and a retaliatory gun pTay and in a little whilq the foreigners were the prisoners of Halstead et al. Not, however, until there had been mutual accusations that each party was the chicken stealing gang. Mose and Biboli, however, admitted that they had the chickens in their little cave house. They surrendered them without protest! Sheriff Hess, of Newton county,who had been called, arrived and took the two men to Kentland, where they were fined $5 and costs each for aiming guns and the fine and costs in each case totaled $33.05. They were brought to Rensselaer and placed in jail and Monday Mose was released when has fine and costs were staid. It is» possible th&t both the foreigners were bewildered by the phole affair and that neither was implicated in the stealing of the chickens but thought they were helping to locate the chicken thieves. This is quite sure to he the case with Mose, whose conduct has been altogether above reproach. There is said to be some circumstantial evidence against Biboli, hut it is probable that by the time he lays out his $33.05 fine and costs he will have received sufficient education in the way of American civilization ito leave other’s poultry alone and to iforegto using firearms. Mike is stnl in jail and if there is some one who can talk a little Polish they can get his side of the story. It may be interpreted, however, oy the activities of Sunday that chicken stealing in Newton township is very unpopular and that any fellow who tries to get away with jt : s apt to bump into a charge of shot. So if the guilty parties have escaped they can consider themselves mighty lucky and should take steps looking toward reform.