Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1891 — An Unspeakably Depraved Wretch. [ARTICLE]

An Unspeakably Depraved Wretch.

One Walter Daywitt, who lives near the northwest corner of Barkley tp., is now in the county jail for one of the most beastly and heinous attempts at crime in the history of the county. On Wednesday night of last weak he forced his way into the house of Mrs. Ann Casey, a lady of only g, few weeks less than 80 years of age, and made a most determined attempt at a criminal assault. She fought the villian desperately, striking him with a lighted kerosene lamp, and also made such an outcry as to call Mr. T. H. Hurley and others, from his store, fifty or a hundred yards away. At their appearance, he took to flight, leaving his hat as an evidence against him. Mr. Hurley at once came to Rensselaer, and getting a warrant from Squire Burnham, J. N. McGinnes started in search of Daywitt. The fellow was found to have started towards Pleasant Ridge, and to have slept in a hay stack. The next morning McGinnis got track of him, mainly through his being without a hat, and overhauled him near Pleasant Ridge. He tried to run, but being somewhat crippled he was soon overhauled and brought to town and landed in the jail. He was taken before Squire Burnham, Friday, but waived examination and was bound over to the circuit court, in bail of $1,000, an amount, which there is no possibility of furnishing. Daywitt is about 30 years old, a worthless drunkard on general principles, but, so far as known, not drunk when the crime was attempted. He served a year in the penitentiary some 6 or 8 years ago, for stealing.

It is not generally known that we are so near a band of Indians. At Rensselaer there is an Indian school under the supervision of Uncle Sam, which has been in operation several years, and now has 66 young bucks and fillies in attendance, and The Republican of that city says they are well behaved. Occasionally one runs away and hides in the grass but they are not yet old enough to do scalping-

The above item is floating about among our neighboring exchanges, quite promiscuous like, but it requires a slight correction or two, .to make it strictly correct. The institution spoken of, which has often been described at length in The Republican, is not, strictly speaking, under government control, although Uncle Sam makes an annual appropriation for its benefit. It is a Catholic institution and is under the management of the Catholic Bureau of Indian Missions, of Washington, D. C The pupils are all boys, or young men, there being no “fillies” as the above item calls them, at all. The building was erected mainly at the expense of Miss Kate Drexel, of Philadelphia, the marvellously wealthy young lady who lately originated a new Catholic sisterhood, to which she gives her immense fortune.