1156 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1 



by the saloon evil can never be corrected by 

 saloon work or by mobs of crazy clrimken 

 men. In fact, I am led to believe that the 

 memory of such crazy work stirs up a frenzy 

 in the mind of a drunken man, especially an 

 ignorant one, so that he will go and do the 

 very thing he has heard of. You have all 

 heard of the mother who, when she went 

 away from home, warned her children to be 

 very sure not to poke peas into their ears. 

 When she returned home, every last child 

 had poked a pea into one or both ears, and 

 a doctor had to be summoned. A wiser plan 

 for that mother would evidently have been 

 to put all the peas out of the children's reach 

 and say nothing. 



Well, this mob law and lynching, especial- 

 ly where the lynching is done by men crazed 

 with drink, has quite an opposite effect from 

 the punishment inflicted by law, where the 

 criminal has a comparatively slow, deliber- 

 ate, and impartial trial. Punishment by law 

 does not seem to have the craze and conta- 

 gion about it that the lynching business does. 

 Unless we respect and reverence the laws of 

 our land, our land is doomed. 



Well, friends, our own quiet, orderly. God- 

 fearing locality in Northern Ohio is just hav- 

 ing a jolt or two along the line about which 

 I have been talking I wish to confess to 

 you, however, before making the following 

 extract from the Cleveland Leader, that I 

 hesitated a good while before doing so; but 

 I reasoned that not only the mothers but the 

 little girls need to be cautioned; in fact, they 

 must be cautioned as well as watched. Now 

 read the following: 



Greenville, Pa., August 18.— Assailant ofMiss 

 Whitehead Reported Strung up at Wayne, O. 

 BY Posse. 



The entire section between Buffalo, Newcastle, Pa., 

 and this city has been aroused since 7 o'clock yester- 

 day morning over one of the most brutal crimes ever 

 committed in this part of the country. 



At midnight a posse of fifty farmers, intent upon 

 lynching, was closing in on the Ben Jones swamp, 

 near Wick, O,, twenty-eight miles north of Warren. 



They believe they have surrounded the tramp who 

 outraged fourteen-year-old Alma Whitehead, of Tur- 

 nersville. Pa.. Saturday night and Sunday morning, 

 keeping her tied hand and foot to a tree in the woods 

 all night. 



The posse has traced the man to the swamp by 

 means of Warren bloodhounds. Every man is armed 

 heavily with a shotgun. Although Sheriff Williams, 

 of Meadville, Pa., and Chief of Police Frank Flowers, 

 of Warren, are with the posse, it is believed that noth- 

 ing can avert a lynching should the criminal be cap- 

 tured. 



The crime of which the little Whitehead girl was 

 the victim was undoubtedly premeditated. She is the 

 daughter of Rev. J.M. Whitehead, of Turnersville, head 

 of the most respected and looked-up-to family in the 

 town. She is extremely pretty, with a dark complex- 

 ion, and known for her beauty through the entire 

 countryside. She is one of the most popular girls of 

 her school. 



Saturday afternoon Alma was playing with girl 

 friends. They noticed a heavy, thick-set tramp, with 

 sandy, bushy hair and mustache, one eye gone, watch- 

 ing her. She thought nothing of the affair at the 

 time, however. 



Shortly before 7 o'clock Saturday evening her moth- 

 er sent her to the home of a neighbor for some butter. 

 That was the last seen of her until 7 o'clock yesterday 

 morning, when she came running into her home and 

 fell sobbing and fainting on the floor in front of her 

 distracted mother, telling her story, mingled with 

 tears of shame. 



Shortly after she had left the house, she told her 

 mother, the tramp met her. She tried to run away, 

 but he seized her before she could escape. He carried 



a big coat which he threw over her head until it near- 

 ly smothered her. Running swiftly out of the town 

 in the evening dusk, he carried her to the woods near 

 the house. There he bound her hand and foot to a 

 tree. 



All night long the tramp kept her in the woods. At 

 7 o'clock yesterday morning, when she had become so 

 weak that she could scarcely stand, he released her, 

 telling her to go home, but threatening to kill her 

 should she ever breathe a word of what had taken 

 place in the woods. He then ran away, leaving her 

 limp on the ground. 



After a tew minutes her courage returned, and with 

 it a little of her strength She staggered to her feet, 

 and started for home. 



In the Leader for August 20, one day la- 

 ter, we have the sequel as follows: 



Meadville, Pa , August 19. — Cringing and quaking 

 in momentary expectation of being torn from the 

 hands of a deputy sheriff by the crowd which formed 

 a gantlet from the jail to Magistrate Powers' office 

 late to-day, Henry W. Wagner, the assailant of Alma 

 Whitehead, improved the first opportunity to plead 

 guilty, anxious to get back to the security of the jail. 



He admits everything, offering in palliation, ' " I don't 

 know why I did it." 



Wagner is a German, twenty-seven years old. He 

 is a typical tramp in dress and general appearance. 

 He says he recently worked in a foundry at Lorain O 



The maximum penalty for his crime is $1000 fine and 

 fifteen years' imprisonment. The report from Tur- 

 nersville is that Miss Whitehead will recover. 



Now, friends, this is not all of it. Only a 

 few days before this, and not much more 

 than a dozen miles from where I sit dictat- 

 ing, a young woman who was employed in 

 Akron got off an electric car and proceeded 

 to make a short cut to her home in a path 

 through the woods. As soon as she was out 

 of sight of everybody a tramp grabbed her, 

 and in the terrible struggle that ensued he 

 tore nearly all the clothing from her body. 

 After pounding her into insensibility he tied 

 her hands and feet to four stakes which he 

 had previously driven into the ground for 

 that purpose; and then, remembering that 

 her torn clothing might lead people to follow 

 him, he went back and gathered the bits up. 

 While he was absent she revived and work- 

 ed herself loose by pulling a stake from the 

 ground, and then ran to some neighbors and 

 gave the alarm. An officer of the law was 

 informed, but he stupidly neglected to rouse 

 the neighborhood until sufficient time had 

 elapsed to enable the fellow to jump on to a 

 freight-train and get away. 



These two events have occurred right here 

 near my home, in a thickly settled commu- 

 nity. Now, then, what does it mean? and 

 why has God seen fit to 2iermit such terrible 

 outrages to go unpunished— outrages against 

 helpless women and children ? The fourteen- 

 year-old girl was a minister's daughter, ed- 

 ucated and refined — one of God's jewels. 

 You may i-emember that, in a recent Sunday- 

 school lesson, they tried again and again to 

 teach Pharaoh to have some respect for God's 

 chosen flock of people, and to permit them 

 to depart by themselves that they might be 

 a nation after God's chosen plan. When all 

 else failed, and Pharaoh continued to harden 

 his heart, the first-born in Egypt was strick- 

 en down. The blow fell on comparatively 

 innocent children. 



We sometimes ask the question, " Why has 

 God permitted such demons in human form 

 to prowl about the country, seeking to lay 



