Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1889 — SULLIVAN CONVICTED. [ARTICLE]

SULLIVAN CONVICTED.

Sentenced to One Year’s Imprisonment— * lie Will Appeal. At Purvis, Miss., Friday, the jury found John L. Sullivan guilty of prize fighting, Sullivan may be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a year. His sentence has not been pronounced. Sullivan -was sentenced, Saturday, to one year's confinement in the State prison. Uoferee Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty and was fined S2OO. A special telegram from New Orleans says: Sullivan refused to talk about the sentence. He had all his goods packed up iu readiness to leave, and had indeed secured passage on the train this evening. Within an hour of his sentence he had told all his friends good-bye, mounted the Can-non-ball train, and was on his way for New York. He will go there via Cincinua.’i, reaching the metropolis on Tuesday. Thence he goes to Boston to see his father and mother. The sentence was a surprise to nearly every one in Purvis, where the idea prevailed that the Judge would be satisfied with a vindication of the law and subject Sullivan to a heavy fine and nominal imprisonment. The outlook is not promising, and it is thought both here aud in Mississippi that only a pardon from the Governor can save Sullivan from the sentence Judge Terrell gave him and imprisonment for a year. His counsel will, of course, mako a legal fight for him, but the case is not a strong ono. There is practically no denial of the prize-fight. The conviction and sentence are in strict accord-, anee with law, and difficult to overturn Ihe points made by the defense in regard to the Judge’s charge to the grand jury, and the admission of certain evidence, while sufficient for an appeal, will scarcely serve to reverse the verdict and the sentence, and even if they do the case at beat will simply be sent back to"Pimrtk to be. re tried, with no prospect of a different termination. In the meanwhile, .however, Sullivan is released on SI,OOO bond, under the provisions of the Mississippi code, which authorizes such release in case of misdemeanors, where a Pusppnsive appeal is taken to the Supreme Court. That court does not meet until after the holidays, and the calculation Is that the Sullivan case will come before it early in February, when the champion will have to bo present at Jackson. As he has been convicted, and is under sentence, no advantage is to bo gained by forfeiting his bond, as could be extradited anywhere. Those best ac?uainted with the Supremo Court of Mississippi beliove that it will sustain Judge Terrell’s views. The three Judges are all men of Governor Lowry’s way of thinking, and one of them is his brother-in-law. If they support Judge Terrell, and refuse to grant a new trial, Sullivan will be turned over to Sheriff Cowart, of Marion, to be Imprisoned in the county jail at Columbia. Governor Lowry will be succeeded aa thief executive of Mississippi by ex-Gov* ernor Stone ip January next, provided Stone is elected in November, as is probable, so that the matter of a pardon will rest with the latter after the Supreme Court has acted ou the appeal.