Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1882-05-16
TOM OWENS,
The sAslbyviIls Stable Keeper,
Is Still ON His Travels, and ID
Making IL Lively for Gossips.


vile, came this way with Miss Sophia
Neal, the disgraced Middle Tennessee
belle, last Thursday, he was prepared
fer both love and war. He enjoyed
the first on the train and during his
two nights and one days tarry in this
city, and war was his when he struck
Shelbyville yesterday. His first en-
counter was with the irate brother of
Miss Neal, the result being a whack
from a club dealt by the brother; his
next was to look down the muxzle of
a pistol pointed at him by the same
brother. His injured wife's brother
was on his trail at the same moment,
and hearing Of it Owens beat q retreat,
taking the woods on horseback, fol-
lowed by the wife's brother, armed
with weapons of human slaughter.
The rude looking livery mau evil
IDENTIFY has plenty of nerve, orhe never
would have ventured here carrying a
navy revolver, and then gone straight
back to Shelbyville to face the music,
as he has done. Coming this way on
the train, his big pistol was noticed,
and a man aboard thought seriously of
exposing him to the authorities, but,
believing him to be freshly married,
decided it would not be right under the
circumstances, SO let him alone. The
man and the ex-maid rested quietly
and undisturbed at the hotel until
Sunday morning, then Owens paid his
bill and tookthe home trail by way of
the Louisville & Nashville railway.
He registered here as I. B. Davis and
wife, and the name is that of one of
the citizens of Shelbyville.
Those who noticed Owens about
the hotel say hat he is any
thing but a prepossessing-lookin per-
son. In fact, his general appearance
is repulsive, and how a young woman
as attractive and accomplished as Miss
Neal could fancy such a man, knowing
at the same time that he had a wife
and four or five children-for she
lived with the family-is one of those
strange freaks which, to the world at
large, are not easily accounted for,
unless the woman is a wanton by ma
ture.
Owens and the girl arrived here on
Friday last, with very little baggage,
and went back, as before stated, on
Sunday morning. The girls move
ments after departing from this city
are not known. She may not have
been shameless enough to go back and
parade herself among her people
about Shelbyville, so, doubtless rested
somewhere on the route. The esteem
in which the girl was held by the
people of Bedford county, the promi.
ncnce of her late father, Colonel
james L. Neal, the fact that she was
an h%eiress, and also that she had been
carefully educated, together with the
fact that she was considered one of
the brightest girls in Middle Tennes-
see, and was a leading belle in that
section, makes it the more mysterious
that she should thus throw herself
away upon one so much her inferior
and a married mar at that.
The Nashville Banner Of yesterday
afternoon, has a telegram from Shell
byville giving an account of Ovens
arrival there yesterday, and it says the
eloper was confronted by a brother Of
Miss Neal who hit Owens with a stick
but was restrained from doing more
serious injuries. The infuriated
brother then leveled a pistol at the
head of the miscreant but was pre-.
vented from firing. 1t took six strong
men to hold young Neal and to wrest
the pistol from his grasp. Nobody
had to hold Owens. In fact he mounted
a horse and took the woods, and soon
after a brother Of the miserable wife
of the scamp took his trail. The
Banner says that the excitement is at
blood heat.