Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1911 — Wm. Augspurger Charged With Being Insane. [ARTICLE]

Wm. Augspurger Charged With Being Insane.

Wm. Augspurger, a prominent farmer of Newton tp., was arrested Monday on an affidavit sworn out before Squire Irwin by Ernest Morlan. charging him with being a person of unsotmd mind and dangerous to the .community to be at large. Mr. Augspurger will fight the proceedings ?nd gave a bond in the sum of SSOO. with C. J. Dean as surety, for his appearance yesterday afternoon for trial. - , Quite a number of witnesses will be heard on both sides, it was understood, and as the trial was not finished at the hour of going to press, we are unable to give the outcome in this issue of The Democrat. - While the affidavit is merely

the regular form for proceedings of this kind, the reasons for it given by Mr. Morlan, as we learn them, are as follows. While Mr. Morlan and his father were going to. the polls Saturday to vote on the railroad subsidy, Mr. Augspurger was standing in his barn door with a revolver in his hand, and a shot was fired—the Morlans say at them — and struck a wire in the fence at the side of the road. As they looked toward Augspurger, they claim attracted by the shot, he had the gun leveled at them and fired again. As we understand, Mr. Augspurger claims that he was shooting at a rat near the barn and was not shooting at the Morlans at all. Many matters of neighborhood differences were expected to come up at the hearing that would bear out the insanity charge, it was stated.