Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1886 — The Last About Wartena. [ARTICLE]

The Last About Wartena.

One year of the Demo-Cofrfed-erate, sham reform administration t?nds to-day. Even the Democrats are having a holiday because there are to be only three years more of it. - ' ■ , The Vance- family, of North Caroliha; who were intensely loyal during the war, (to the Confederacy) are How receiving their reward at the fostering hands of the government. including Senator V. 15. VanCe, there are fjiteeu of the family now drawing good pay in the government service, with a total anniial salary of $25,32U. Thejre is one most evident fact which the people of Rensselaer may as well make up their minds to accept And that is that while the town is in its present ptage of develops in ent, manufucturiug establishments are not going to seek us out and force themselves upon us. If they come tie re they must be worked for and they must be paid tur.

Do not forget that any on;' who moved, from one tuwushi p to another after Thursday, February 4, 1886, has no right to vote at the township elections to be held on Monday, April 5, 1886 Any one who moves from one ir tcinct to another after Saturday, March 6, 18 a 6, will not have the rigiit to vote at sai l election. Do not forget these datis Watch the moves. The democrats who keep up the howl about the alleged fraud of 1876 seem to forget that the t one iuiiajiutaole fact of that campaign was tue repeated attempts made by Uncle Usufruct Sammy, with his cipher dis patches, to buy one electoral vote, out and out, and that, if he had a chance, at any time, t > linve closed such a bargain, he threw it away by hagging over tne price. They also forget*Seven-mule Barnum with his dispatches.

The Monticeilo papers never tire of making and-repeating wornout old jojkes at the expense of Delphi, as a slow-going aud uuprogreasire old town; but we take notice that Delphi business men have just secured the location of a big new paper mill at tlieir The mill takes the place, as we understand, of the one recently burned near Monticeilo. Delphi has also nearly 100 miles of gravel roads reaching her limits, and more in the course of construction. ALhough there ib still a chance for considerable bad weather- before seed time, the big end of the winter is surely past, and the people of this portion of ludiana can truly congratulate themselves on having had an easy winter. In many purls of the country, especially the Wes. and the south the winter has ueen uncommonly severe: and in many .-parts of the ea t, to >, the \yinter has been hard, but by a succession of good luck, the great storms of the winter have nearly ail passed to the one side or tne other from this section.

We have no douot whatever, as to the practicability oE Capt. 'Eads’ proposed ship railway across (the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and idost easfiestly hope tliat Congress will hare enough enlightened statesmanship to see the'great advantages that will result to this country from its construction under American auspices; The very moderate guarantees requested by Capt Eiwla and his coadjutors should be granted qt once. The construction of this ship railway is , the only practicable way of heeding off the boastful Frenchman wh o is buildpug.the Paiiium canal.

Holes and Hems of Interest Anent Hanging Day The Republican's account of the hanging was written *and in print within less than two and a half hours after the body was taken down. Experienced newspaper men will agree in pronouncing our account remarkably Comprehensive; and correct, considering the brief time in which it was prepared and printed. It was not to be ex pec-; ted, however, that all the interest-, ing de.ails of the affair should be given m so hastily prepared an arcount. Two or three errors important enough to require correction, also crept into our accou t. We failed to mention the- manner in which Wartena spoke, in llis last remarks, of the great kinuness of , Sheriff Yeoman; and also said that Sheriff Harper, of Crawfordsville adjusted the noose about the Condemned man’s neck. "We should have said that Sheriff Yeoman placed the noose in position and that Sheriff Harper afterwards adjusted it. After the body was taken down aildinto the jail, the brain was removed, by a number of the Rensselaer physicians; assisted by several from abroad. The brain weighed 44 ounces or-only 3 or 4

ounces less than the average adult male’s brain. It was apparently healthy, and the depth of the convolutions showed thut tne reasoning powers were fairly strong. Towards night tue body was taken over to Westbp cemetery and buried in a remote corner. Quite a la. ge crowd was present at the burial bul no religious services were nekl. NOTES IN GENERAL. A number of the members of the'G. A. li. post of this place togetaor ■wi tli a fine-100 king and well arm d defacement from the Hose Lawn post, kept excellent order both wit hin aud without the enclosure. 8 ime of the papers said the boys .were armed with revolutionary muskets anti muzzleloading ax-handles, but they did their work well, ail the same. They were all sworn ih as special bilitf’s, aud thus had full authority of the law for keep ng order, and if need have been, of making arrests. j it is stated that a gi eat deal of liquor was sold during the day, but we ha\e not beard of a slhgle case of druukenness, and the crowd was certainly very orderly and well-behaved. The scene of Wartena’s crime is not more than a mile, in a direct line from the spot where young Cotton, of Remington, was so mysteriously murdered in thu winter of 1878 Wartena was 41 years old the 27 th of’last July, wis about 5 ft--9 inches in height and weighed' about 160 pounds.

The relic hunters were on the V ampage, of course. They made short work of the rope that hanged WuTtena, and Sheriff Yeoman had hard work to secure • even that part of it which immediately surrounded the poor devil’s - neck. Even his old shoes, which were thrown aside when the body was i put in thejColliu, were soon'hacked into jiblets, and carried away for relics. Araojig those who were with Wartena Friday morning, was John BrinSvuna, a native of Friesland, Holland, and ail acquaintance of'the AYartena family. He came in compauy with Bart Dolphin, of .Lafayette, also a Hollander, Warton a talked for some time with Mr. Brin.-,ema, aud consented t hat' he should write to his father, in the old countl-y./ p' Wartena’s perverse, persistence' in denying his gfiilt, when at the 1 very threefold of death, had the effect of cWuite steeling the hearts of many present against the Sympathy tk«y might otherwise have felt for 'the lost \Vhat object, it any, the prisoner hoped to gain by'denyingdiis guilt; is, of course in mystery. * Jt niay be; howeverj that his canning but shni*1 lew 'brriiii conceived the . idea

that if he persisted in the denial , and especially if, at the last, he should hold up his hand arid call God to witness his innocence, Ins protestations would have such an effect upon his hearers that they would interfere and saVe nis life This is rendered more probablefrom the fact that from his ignorance of the machinery of the law, he probably believed that there, were those present, especially the Sheriff, who would have the lawful power to prevent the execution, if they would. It was a well behaved crowd outside, but, all the same, the board wall would not have stood a great while between them and a view of the hanging, had there not .been a strong guard stationed around to keep the crowd away from the wall. A report lias been in circulation, since Saturday, that Wartena’s body had been dug up, Friday night, and removed, by bodysnatchers. Many persons give credence, to the report, though Uncle BiTly Beck, the Sexton, says that the grave ’ has hot been disturbed.

NkwSPATER ACCOUNTS. Ne wspaper men were present in large force, aud among them several short-hand reporters. Three or four reporters were present from Lafayette, two from Valparaiso, two'from Chicago, one each from Crawfordsville, Monon and Logansport. Several of the Indianapolis, Chicago and Lafayette papers were well represented by resident reporters. Several of the Lafayette papers gave remarkably full and, complete accounts, not only oc the hanging but of the pre vious history of the case. The journalists'of Lafayette are an enterprising set, and at the same time have enough fear of the Lord in their hearts to be willing to tell the truth- when nothing c;:n be gained by lying.

L'fie aecduiit of the Chicago Times reporter was long and loud, but, of course, not gotten up wi h I much regird to truth; as a few i sample quotations will show: • li. was thsllj rtc. hanging in the his- 1 I tory of th« county. arfu the farmers i mad*- a ho’iday of it. and before noon : u- arly all the -tore keepers had. closed i their doors and repaired .to the county ij.il. Ihe Hoosiers came in from the surron.ndicg country for a radius of liti ymi m s They carae by train/ they came by wagoti and on norse-back, and , t hose who . ouj 'l not ge t a a > ooaveyenCe I -,v i Iked .'.’. tie. &t t The -above is the merest esrfgger- ! atiou, and t statement thfifc the, Rev. B. F. Ferguson claituftt! that lie was the only man who ought to pray for Wartena, is an out and out lie. Equally false was the following' S:r irre»M v .xweil Hid Hariseli, aft *r an f «vuii hia'iiui of tie man’s j puFe, d« tided tl,at 4«e should have a st mutant. and the sheriff ‘gave him ! about tv iaif-pint of whiskey, in two ! descs-V ;< n'e wanted to give 'him ihr©, * . •*-|a " V . .- • . . •>- ’ •

! b it Wanena shook his head saying > e had hact“enough.” The truth about the whiskey is th;it Wartena did not take to ex'i\ ■ * ceed two ounces. The Times re porter himself was decidedly “full,” and the liquor which another man drank looked very large to his excited imagination. The assertion is also made that Wartena’s neck was not broken, and that lie died slowly,.by strangulation. Five or .six atde physicians carefully examined the body after death, and unanimously decided that the neck was broken; and there tsns surely nothing in the appearance of the body while hanging, nor after death, to indicate that death was not instantaneous, and the result of the dislocated neck. - “LEFT OVER” MATTER. 4 • ' J jftr ’

The following paragraphs were put iu type last Friday, with the expectation of finding room for them iu the supplement, but they were crowded out. jr*~ Until last Saturday Wartena had been cheerful, and blindly confident that he would escape : hanging. He ate, drank and slept as usual, .played cards with his fellow prisoner every evening, and seemed to„enjoy life generally. On Saturday the news that the Supreme Court had affirmed hisi sentence, was communicated to him by his wife, and from that time he bedame quite broken down. He would eat and sleep but little, and spent most of his time lying upon the bed in his cell. Of course his religious condition h is been the subject of much solicitude- Although he read the, Bible a great-deal during his con- ; finement in jail, he did not seem have any real religion ami,lit fact, was a good deal of a sc- ffer. Rev 13. P. Ferguson, of the F. \\ . Baptist church, has labored much with him lately, but without much apparent result. About a week or more ago, two of the Sjisters of •Mercy, from the Catholic Orphan Asylum, began to visit .him, and their labors had so much influence upon him that on Thursday afternoon he received baptism at the hands of the Rev. Father Zu nbuelte, pastor of Su Augustin’s Catholic church. The gallows is a most excellent structure for the purpose, and was built iu the spring of 1885. It is unlike any evefr built before, m some important particulars, and was'designed by Mr. J,ohu Chamberlain, a resident ofr Rensselaer, and a brother-in-law of Sheriff Yeoman. The iron mechanism by which the drop is sprung is* very perfect and ingenious; but the chief advantage this gallows has .over -all previous ones, is the double trap door, so arranged thatthe condemned man will fall di-t rectly downward, witnout any swinging sideways; tuni the doors swing entirely out of the way of the subject’s body, and bo’caught and held .there .by automatic springs. ...* v . v . J Early'in the week several Veiti- ! zens,including oh a or two ministers, wrote to Governor Gray, ■ making a final appeal to him to l savsg \\ artenh’s life. The GovCrn- > i ofjs answer was received Wednes- • cliy- *’Tt recited the, fadt, that the