Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1891 — QUIETLY LYNCHED. [ARTICLE]

QUIETLY LYNCHED.

Sheriff Johnson, of Spencer, Ind„ was called early Sunday morning by some unknown persons outside the jail.and throwing up the window he asked what was wanted. Two men stood below, with a third between them, and one of the formor replied that they had a prisoner whom they wished to place in jail. Descending in his night-shirt, the Sheriff opened the door,and immediately forty or fifty men rushed upon him, threw a blanket over his head, and In a moment had him securely bound and gagged. They then demanded and secured the keys to the various cells and began a search, evidently looking for Frank Dice, who had been in jail for several days awaiting trial on a charge of murdering a man named Chaney. Not a word was said by any of the men till Dice's cell was reached. The prisoner had been aroused by the heavy tread of the mob and was crouching in one corner of the cell. As the door swung open he at tcrod a low groan, as if conscious of what was coming, and a moment later he wa s brought out Into the corridor In front of his cell.

Dice was then told that his hoor had come and was asked if he had anything to say. While still trying to talk a member of the mob threw a small cord around his neck and he was drawn np to one ol the cross-beams in front of his cell. Tbs mob tarried a few moments till satisfied that life was extinct, and then qnletly left the jail and passed out of town.

Dempster Beatty, of St. Joseph county, thirty-four years ago employed Senatoi Peffer, of Kansas, to cut cordwood, and when Peffer left Indiana for the West hi owed Beaty *56, for which be gave hit note. The collection of the note was outlawed years ago, but recently Beatty wrote to Peffer concerning it, and received assurances that the indebtedness would bs liquidated in the fullness of time,