The age-herald., 1898-01-09
WAS 4 MAN WITH 4 RECORD Tintype Photographer Who Had Some Queer Experiences. CAPTURED THE APACHE KID And Was Paid By Him With Red Govern
 ment BIanket-A Noted Desperate
 Does a Similar Trick.

Installed for the winter on a vacant lot | in the northwest section of this town is a
 rusty looking old tintype wagon that has been around a good deal Tom Newlands, ] sole proprietor of the outfit, started out
 with the wagon from his home in Mont pelier, Vt, in 1873, and has had pretty adventurous time of 1t ever since. He is a ruddy, we'll l-preserved man of 50. The upper part of his left ear is missing.
 "A crazy circus tentman's bullet tore that half of my ear away" he said by way of explanation. 'For the first few years that started out with this old geo. whanger of picture bus, travelled along | side of the fy-by-night, one-stand circuses l out in the western country during the sum
 mer months. But that kind of life got
 bit too warm for my blood l earned some
 money and d whole lot of vegetables and l fodder at it-I'd had to have had freight l train to carry all my truck the farmers 1 offered to swap me in exchange for pie | lures, for few of them out there drive to | the circus with more than the price Of the | tickets for themselves and their families but the life became too exciting Tor ne. | got myself mixed up in three big pitcned, | Hey Rube battles within three years. and | when l began to lose portions ef my car cass, like this half of my left ear, in these l shindigs, l concluded it was time to quit. l The last circusmen's fight l got dragged | into was certainly warm game and no | mistake. A pickpocket started 1t going. l It was out In OSkalooSa, Kan, in the sum l mer of '76. The pickpocket had made | some good hauls at the afternoon perform ance, and the Reuben town constables came to the night show loaded for snowbifds. I guess they'd ha' lost their jobs if they hadn't gobbled up somebody for the lift ing work of the afternoon. So they lit upon the boss tentman as the man who had been getting in his fine work This boss tentman was bad and when he got excited he was as crazy as a loon. One of the constables goes up to where he was lying by tent fiap chewing straw, and says he:
 "We want you down at the calaboose.' "'Hey? says the boss tentman, sitting up.
 "'Goin' to take you to the calaboose and | look through you for them wallets and watches that disappeared hereabouts this afternoon
 "'You are! Me? Why, the blazes yon say Go way
 "'Come on, now. We're a-goin' to take you
 '"The boss tentman sat up straight, rubbed the sleepers out of his eyes and looked at the constables like they were a new breed of Zebras.
 "'Blamed if l don't think they mean it, and they're talkin to me- says he Say, do you know who you're talkin' to?' "That's whut,' says the constable who seemed to be boss.
 ".Hey. Rubev yelled the boss tentman. | Now any man who has ever heard that deviish Hey Rube! yell around the main tent of a circus on the western circuit, knows that it means trouble and big heap of it. After having been clawed around in these iamups before, you'd naturally ha' thought that I'd have had enough sense to take to the tall brush when this bad boss tentman let loose with his rally howl. B didn't. My wagon was planted only hfteen feet away from where the chaw was going on and when I heard the Hey Rube! jumped out into the mess with all hands, Of course, I was always alongside Of the circus men in those fights. Well, 1t wash four seconds before the whole lS0 men, per formers and all, along with the circus, were right on hand in lope. The performance was going on, but that didn't make any diff ference The folks out there who take in circuses know the Hey. Rube! yell about as well as the circus folks themselves do, and they were out backing up their consta- bles just quick as we got around the boss tentmar and they outnumbered us about twenty times over, at that
 If there wasn't the devil to pay and in terest to boot for the next fifteen minutes, I'm a Dutch windmill. It was tent stakes, clubs, cobbles, fists and heavy boots at first, and all told, l guess there was about an even 2,000 of us, circusmen and junipers, rolling around the ground hammering at each other You might think we got the worst of it from the start but we din't by a darned sight We had the junipers good and walloped at the end of fifteen minutes, and no one dead, and every thing 'ud have been all right and the show'd have go1 on, if that crazy boss tentman hadn't started his gun play. He broke out of the circle of us-we had him surrounded, so the constables couldn't grab him in the mixup. and scoot away with hinl-and began to fan both of his guns at once. He was only ten feet away from the nearest of the junipers and one of 'em went down every time his gun cracked. This work was bit too heavy for us to stand for, and we made jump for the maniac. got showed right in front of his left-hand gun, ard that was the time the half of my ear disappeared. The tentman corralled the crazy foreman, threw a few 5ut aets of water on him to cool him off and got him out of town on one of the circus horses. He never showed up with the crc'is any more. Besides compelling me to finish my whirl liere below with only three-quarters of my regular complement of ear, which was a small matter in comparison, he had killed three of Oskaloosa's citizens and wounded half a dozen others I made up my mind after that night that had had all of the circus wanted.
 'I made money in this business and kept a good deal of it, too, Newlands went on. It don't cos' mo much to live, and quit
 
 started out with me and was with me on this old land packet for six years. I've missed T 0 good deal. She was only 22 when sh, died. We were down in the Brazos riycr country. and she was bit by an adder morning while she was gath ering prairie flo, CTS to decorate our break fast table. l sucked the bite and made her drink more than a quart of whisky, all though she hated the sight and smell of it. It didn't do any good. and she died in this wagon. buried her myself beside the trail in the white cotton dress she was mar ried in. I had been more or less of Drinking man right up to that time. But, says I to myself, when I was digging a deep hole in thep rairie for the little wo- man who had been such O good friend to me, Here's the finish of whisky for me. It couldn't do her no good, and 1t ain't ever going to do me no good, and I've taken my last gulp of it. I've never taken drop of liquor since that day, nearly twenty years ago.
 ''.This wagon and me have been in some tight places without either one of us know ing anything about it. little over five years ago I was driving along through a