Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1885 — The Supreme Court Decision in the Wartner Matter Re-opens a Celebrated Case. [ARTICLE]

The Supreme Court Decision in the Wartner Matter Re-opens a Celebrated Case.

The Fowler Era again changed hands, last week, G. W. Mellisb Yetiring, and J. H. Lewis assuming possession. Mr. Lewis is from 'Chicago. ' S. H. Jackson has retired from the editorship of the Winamac Republican, and has gone west. Mr. Jackson »has had editorial charge ■of the paper for about 16 months. Mr. Jenkins, the proprietor, wil'l tonduct the paper himself. Niagara Falls Park was dedicated yesterday, with most imposing and appropriate ceremonies. The great national disgrace of having the Falls of Niagara and the other natural wonders in their Vicinity, in the hands of a gang of grasping extortioners lias at last come to an end. The price paid by the State of New York, for the property included within the reservation, was nearly one and a half millions of dollars. It is greatly to the honor of the people of that state that they have been willing td..devote so large a sum. to this landab le but purely sentimentai object.

It has been stated with a good appearance of reliability that the President lately stated, in an irate mood, that he would “be boiled in hell” before he would forsake the civil service reform principles he so strongly professed, and. the promises he made prior to his" inauguration. Also that, in speaking of his proposed summer vacation, he pronounced the ravenous herd of office seekers “political pests”. Very poor comfort, that, for the editorial disciples of Office Grabber Hendricks, who met at Maxincuckee last week and resoluted themselves into the postoffices their souls were sighingfor. Three convicts escaped from a Virginia penitentiary last Sunday. One was a murderer under an eight years sentence. Another was a ravisher, sentenced for eighteen years, while the third, more heinous than either, was in for twenty-four years for horse-steal-ing/ We know of a court which, bn one occasion, sentenced a man who bore an equal share with another iii stealing back from a salmon keeper twenty dollars, which they had spent there, to ten years f in the penitentiary; and the same court, on another Occasion, sent a man who had murdered a woman and child and robbed and burned their house, to five years in the same prison. Verily the ways of bourts and juries are past finding but. v

Tlie “Foolish Virgin”, or as she fexpressgs' it herself “The Girl about Town”, of the Oxford Tribune, gets off the following in the . last issue of that mercurial sheet: I see that there is a circus headed toward Rensselaer. Editor Marshall will please set his "poemgrindir” to >v®rk . When the last circus came to KensselaeY, Marshall wrote.. thus’y to his best girl: '. . 31 y dea r Lb, -» Will you go ' ; , To tlie show ? J hava t ao -cat: lx>»li in one row .> They cost me a trifle less than a <li uie. If you say you’ll go, well hare, a g >otf t me”. If there was any trffth in the Assertion that a circus was Headed" this way, we could forgive the old gi|l for falsely foisting the dogiftre! upon us; but both circus and hkymes -are-figments of her pwo brain. .

A Colored Murderer seeking a Xew Trial. The celebrated Walton-Frazier-Garrett murder, which occurred near St. Paul, Decatur county, in January, 1882, is likely to come before the public again very soon. John M. Walton was murdered while quietly reading in-the house. Investigation showed a conspiracy between his wife, Ellen V. Walton. Oscar M. Garrett, a neighbor, and Aaron Frazier, a negro. The latter did the killing and, confessed, implicating the others. Garrett was tried at Vernon, and, on account of a technical question, was acquitted. He was placed in jail on another charge, when a mob took him out and hanged him to a tree. l\frs. Walton'was tried by a jury, and given d, life term in the female reformatory, where she now is. Frazier pleaded guilty, and over the objections of the attorneys of Mrs. Walton was sentenced by Judge Bonner to the penitentiary for life, and went there a happy man, to think lie had escaped hanging. The Supreme Court has recently decided, in a murder case from Jasper county, that where a person pleads guilty to murder in the first degree the judge cannot assess the penalty, but leave that to the jury. Frazier has now tiled a writof habeas corpus, asking his release from the penitentiary, which is to be hear d next Monday’.