Morning journal and courier., 1883-09-21
TrumbuII's sensation.

The H0ust9n CAse-He Proposes to Have Case i'm Court.
 State Attorney Samuel Fessenden, of Fair field county, has been applied to for war rants for the arrest of five of the best known citizens of TrumbuIl on the charge of having
 tarred and feathered Charles H. Houston of that town on July 2Gth last. Houston had had quarrel and words with his wife, and the neighbors claimed he had brutally beaten her. She left his home the next morning and went to a cousins house in the town. The next night Houston was taken out of
 bed by six or seven men with blackened and disfgured faces and tarred and feathered. He was taken away from the house in his
 night shirt and down the main road about
 200 yards and tarred and feethered near the
 village church, back of the horse shed. He
 thought he was either going to be hanged
 or drowned. Three men, whom he did not
 recognize, he says, held up large lighted
 lamp with a reflector behind it and the others laid him flat on his back while one applied the tar and feathers with 8
 brush. He daubed first the right leg then the left and then his naked body with wagon tar. Then another, who had g pug OI COHLQOA CuAChSl 4SdIASISy AoA0OA n to one of the party and the latter applied g liberal coating. Then the unfortunate man was turned over on his face and his back was treated in similar manner, after which his prosecutors, none of whom had talked at all while busy at their dastardly work, dispersed and he was allowed 10 make his way home alone.
 well as he could, and for several days he lay sick During the time his wife returned to the house, but was prevented coming uI stairs by Mir. and Mrs. McNamara, who lived
 in the upper part of the house occupied also by Houston. McNamara forcibly held he1 and declared that she should not go to he1 rooms, as her husband would be likely tc
 kill her. She therefore returned to her
 cousins, and Houston got on as best he could with the assistance of his little daughter until he recovered sufficiently
 to go to his friends in Bridgeport. He has applied, he says to Anson Hall, the grand juror of Trumbull, for warrants fol the arrest of his cowardly assailants, but de clares that Hall said he had talked over the
 matter with his neighbors and decided not to get mixed up in the matter, and therefore would not issue the warrants. Houston has therefore engaged H. w. Leonard, of Bridge port, as counsel, and that gentleman has
 made the application to State Attorney Fes. senden.
 Mrs. Houston says that so far as she has any personal knowledge or can gain informa.
 tion her husbands story is true. She denies
 that Houston has ever struck her or threat. ened her with violence, and says pluckily that whatever differences they have are their OWL
 business. She is living at home with her
 two children, but says she is in constant feal of maltreatment. At night she bars her doors, but twice since Houston has been away some one has come to her rooms and
 tried to force in the doors.
 McNamara was also seen. He declares that on the night of the 50 called quarrel Houston
 beat his wife terribly; that he is in the habit of beating his children and that he has in many ways made himself so obnoxious to his neighbors that they consider his treatment 8 good thing, and he even quotes the village clergyman as saying this. Regarding the outrage itself McNamars admits that he saw it, but says that he tried single handed to stop it. Those who perpetrated it were, he says, so we'll disguised that he could not re- oooTiZa anV of fheuo