Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-02-03
MASON IS A BRICK
He Was Formerly a Brick
mason and Street Payer.
BLAZED HIMSELF A TRAIL
To the Penitentiary--Jury Found
Him Guilty of Cunning
For Wealth.
BLAZED HIMSELF A TRAIL

The story told by John J. Mason as to
how he came to have Charles Warren S
gold watch in his possession when arrest
ed on a charge of highway robbery IN
connection with the Reception road house
hold-up does not seem to have had much
weight with the jury, for last evening the
prisoner was found guilty. His punish
ment. however, was left to the court n
it will doubtless be inflicted tomorrow.
The limit is twenty years.
The county attorney made an extraor-
binary effort to convict Mason II the
defense fought equally as hard to secure
his release. The former possessed a lot
of information concerning the doings of
the gang before coming to Butte, but
could not bring it out at the trial, Among
other things he learned that Thomas
Lyons, the third member of the gang, who
participated in both the Reception n
Fountain road house robberies and then
proved an "alibi," served a term IN the
Saltwater Mimi, penltentary.
The jury took the case shortly before
S o'clock and was out less han an hour.
Contrary to expectations, the case Of
the state against James Lacey was not
! taken up in Judge Clancy's court this
morning. By some sort of a slip the name
of Thomas Ryan became sandwiched be-
tween that of Mason and Lacey on he
docket and the charge against him was
taken up first.
Ryan was accused of burglary. On the
23rd of last October he was seen emerging
from, tho Y T. N n lp6Oino hol1Sp al o.
South Main street with a bundle under
his arm. The man hat saw him was E.
G.. Spring, proprietor Of the house. Spring
followed Ryan and had him arrested.
Ryan then gave his name as Thomas
Murphy, but when the information
charging him with burglary was filed in
the district court he haughtily ignored
the name of Murphy and substituted hat
of Ryan.
Spring testified that after he had seen
Ryan leaving the house he had made an
investigation and found that some one
had entered room No. - and taken a suit
of underclothing.
He also testified to q conversation he
had with Ryan at the city jail. Out of
curiosity he had dropped into the Jail Of
flee and asked the jailer if he was there.
He was answered in the affirmative. DO
you wish to see him ?" asked the jailer.
No said Spring. l only wanted to
know if he was there"
The witness SAID he then stepped over,
looked through the bars and saw Ryan
inside. Ryan asked him if he intended to
prosecute him and he answered equivo-
cally by saying that the matter was in
the hands of the police and he had MOTH
ing farther to do with it. He said he was
drunk when he did it, said the witness.
land asked me if | knew a man named
James Sullivan, who rOOmed in the house.
I asked him how he got into the room and
he said he had found the key in the tram
som. The clothing taken belonged to Dick
Farmer, a painter, who occupied the
DOM"
Farmer testified to a disheveled condi-
ton of the room. especially the drawers of
the bureau, which had been pulled out
and ransacked.
James Sullivan was called for the de-
Tense. He testified that on October % of
last year he was lodging at the X. l.. N
T., house. He knew Ryan and considered
him an industrious, honest man.
Ryan said that he had been in Butte
since the spring of 'G5, but in the mean
TIM he had worked on the Castle rail
road grade, in the shelters at Anaconda
and in a hay field near Logan. He detailed
every little act from the time he tackled
the grade until he landed in Jail. He haG
bought the clothing in Anaconda and lef
them with a friend named Patrick New.
in this city the day before his arrest; hac
got them again and then gone into the X