Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1891-08-20
LEGS vs.. JUDGMENT.
A Reporters Midnight Struggle
With his Ancestral Super
stitiOns.
An Incident Of the North Dakota
Border When Judge Lynch
Rcigned.
Seeking a Corpse in the Minnie
sofa Woods by the Light of
the Moon.
How Jim's Legs Won.

the MOON.
How Jim's Legs Won.
Col. Jim Connella has the following
characteristic contribution in recent
Sunday issue OF the Seattle
Press-Times. The story is true in
substance and detail, and the facts oc-
Cured not SO long ago, that many
residents of the state still remember
them:
A night or two since, at about couple
o'clock in the morning, eight or ten men,
bers of the Seattle press gang we're con-
greeated IN their favorite resort eating
sugared pretzels, drinking salted beer and
talking shop. It CHANGED that they were
all reporters and, Of course, the city
editors were burnt up on the quiet, the
telegraph editors roasted boldly and the
managing editors, editorial writer's and
such other necessary evils around news
paper offices piped off to a standstill.
After having eased their appetities for
pretzels and beer to slight extent and
entirely satiated the same for critical
analysis of their fellow-workers. the con-
versation drifted around to that favorite
phase of shop talk, namely, "How got
out the paper"-almost single.handed
and alone, as those Jay opinion-moulders
would put it. Right in line with this
theme, naturally, a number of personal
experiences were related. The prize
story of the auspicious occasion ls worth
repeating, though it must necessarily lose
much of it's interest when reduced to cold,
unsympathetic print, for the mar
rator was something OF an artist in
the story telling line. He looked at
his empty glass, then at the capitalist of
the party, and seeing that the aching void
would be filled ns soon as the beer"
jerker's attention could be attracted, pro-
ceeded something like this, and it is not
likely either that he will make great
roar and swear that he has been mis-
quoted. for he is doubtless painfully
familiar with that game himself.
II here take occasion to acknowledge
with all due humility that for several
years resided in that bleak and barren
prairie waste, North Dakota. But IN
justice to myself, allow me to state, in
extenuation of this apparently unpard0n-
able offense against myself, that this was
before the people there were forced by
law into the original package habit.
Then man could take one drink and
stop, without feeling that he must en-
compasshinself round about the contents
of the entire package" or else waste the
same. At the time to which now refer.
I was holding down job and trying in
vain to draw salary on morning daily
published in once hourishing but then
q withered and dying town on the Min
nesota state line. One evening about 6
o'clock the news came that big Reddy,"
q notorious gambler and desperado, had
killed the town marshal at Detroit,
Mimi, forty miles distant, and that
Judge Lynch was liable to bold short
term Of conrt in that lumber camp some
time during the night. The managing
editor knew had date with party of
to toy with the red, white
and blues, SAID acquaintance being lot
Of 'Chollies, whose salaries I was then
drawing in default Of my own, (honest,i it
was just like finding lt), 50 as might be
expected from member OF his class !
was given the necktie assignment.
"The regular passenger train had al
ready gone east, but there were about
hundred empty freight cars standing on
the sldetracks which we're to be moved
eastward that night, and I secured per-
NIT by wire from the division superln-
tendent located more than hundred
miles away to 60 down on the first Sec
ton of this wild freight. And, by the
way, Superintendent George McCabe of
the slim guage road running from this
city to Franklin was chief dispatcher
then of the Dakota division OF the North
ern Pacific, and it was upon his request
that this permission was granted. We
started on the swlftest run OF my expert
ence about 10 O'Clock. There were 25 box
cars in the train, with an engine at each
end. The track was in superb condition
and an ordinary fash of lightning would
have been dlstanced in that 4O-mile dash.
The train bands bad a pitched gun bat
tie with q lot of tramps who tried to
run the train," and several Of these
OF Americas leisure class
were shot of the bunkers, but such
trifling incident as that scarcely distract
ed my attention from the terrific speed
ut which we we're leaving the telegraph
poles behind. There was no occasion for
any such exhibition of speed, but the
boys had clear track and no specific
orders and were indulging in
their favorite amusement.
"Detroit was reached some minutes be-
lore IL. Already the crowd had gathered
around the Jail. It was representative
American mob of about 1000 sovereigns
unfit for self government, as they we're
then demonstrating, but an ordinary po-
litical spellbinder conld easily have con.
vinced every mother's son OF them that
they were the most enlightened, law.
abiding citizens OF the best governed re-
public on the globe. The sheriff made
The usual feeble resistance and suddenly
absented himself. Some of the epthusi-
astic leaders of this popular tribunal
kicked in the wooden door Of the sheriff's
office and found the cell keys on the
desk.
When the iron cage was opened I OK
pected to see the gamiest tight for life on
record. I Iexpected this, because some