Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1890 — A MAYOR ON THE WAR PATH. [ARTICLE]

A MAYOR ON THE WAR PATH.

He Locks Up Citizens and Ttrnorizes the ~F’ 1 Good Townspeople. ; ■ News was received on the 13th from Cedar Keys, Fla., that that city has been in a commotion since Saturday. The mayor and marshal are holding high carnaval. The light-house keeper had a pistol discharged at him while he was on the’ street, and was warned to keep off the street. An inoffensive man—an episcopal clergyman—and his wife nave left the city to avoid horse-whipping. The U. S. Collector has been held up by Mayor Cottrell and his ally, the town marshal, and threatened with imprisonment if he stepped outside of his office, and R. M. Dozier, agent of th e Florida Central railroad, was waylaid and an attempt made to shoot him. The telegraph operator was terribly whipped by a negro, a yor Cottrell, holding a loaded pistol to the negro’s head, and forcing him to do the whipping. He grossly insulted ladies of the town, and, in fact, things are so bad that many of the oldest and leading citizens have left the place, including several ministers. It is a perfect reign of terror, and every person met on the street or the last few days is armed.