People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1897 — MR. GHIZUM IS WAYLAID [ARTICLE]

MR. GHIZUM IS WAYLAID

While Returning from Kentland to Morocco is Set Upon. Supposed Result of Prosecutions in Liquor Cases, where Violators were Pushed and Not Dismissed, to Their Surprise. According to reports, Prosecuting Attorney Chizum had an experience late Monday night while returning from Kentland. Now Mr. Chizum is a native of Morocco, and at the Kentland court were numerous parties under charge of selling liquor other than in strict accordance with the law, receiving in return the customary fines. It seems the fact of being fellow townsmen, and having heard that infractions of like purport had beeu lightly dealt with in towns like Rensselaer, they felt apparently justified in expecting at least equal treatment from the prosecutor. Hence Mr. C. thinks he |ias a plain case agin’ certain parties on charge of murderous or some other sort of assault. Our evening contemporary reports the incident after this manner:

“During the day Mr. Chizum had publicly stated to the court that he must go home, to Morocco, that night, on account of sickness in his family. “He started home very late at night, with a team, and with him in his covered c irriage, was Attorney Graves of Morocco and* ex-druggist of Kent land. As they drove upon a bridge over the Iroquois River, 5 or 6 miles north of Kentlanu, a buggy load of men drove close up behind, and some began shooting revolvers. At the same time another man, on horseback, suddenly rode up and seized one of Chizum’s horses by the bridle and attempted to stop his team. One of the parties in his buggy seized the whip and began to whip their horses at such a rate that they dashed ahead in spite of the efforts of the man on horseback, who held on for quite a little distance.

Chizum’s team narrowly missed running off the grade, as they passed off the bridge, they escaped that danger however, and drove on to a farm house, some distance aheaSa, where assistants were procured, and Mr. C. and his companions'then returned to Kentland, where he called up Judge Thompson and had warrants issued for the arrest of the same parties who had been prosecuted for selling liqdor. “The theory is, that some of the gang had heard Chjzum announce that he intended to go home Monday night, and they expected that he would go alone and they thought they could easily waylay him at the bridge and throw him into the river; and which being very high now, and with steep banks at that place, and the chances would have been very slight for his ever getting out again, alive. There are no licensed saloons in Morocco and tor some time past a gang of toughs have run quart §hops and had things entirely their own way. ” The Morocco toughs if such they prove to be, deserve to be dealt with severely for their manner of procedure. When they know there are methods which temper the severity of the law’s penalty, they should have made straightway for Rensselaer and instigated a careful persistent inquiry. There’s a heap more gained by even tempered moral suasion than by midnight assaults. Let them learn it.