The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-12-19
CARTER TAKEN TO PRISON.
IELDRIM's DEFAULTING POsTMAs-
TER ON HIS WAY TO PENITEN-
TIARY.

to Columbus, O.-Carter Is n
Mental and Physical Wreck and II
Is Not Expected He VIII Survive
for Two Years the Rigors of the
Ohio WInters-What He Was a
Year Ago and How He Stumbled
and FeII-AmbItIOn His Temptn-
ton and His Ruin.
w. F. Carter, the defaulting Mehrim
postmaster, who pleaded guilty in the
United States Court to the charge of en-
bezzling the money order funds Of the Of
fee TO the amount Of 500 is on his way
to the penitentiary al Columbus, O., where
he win spend the ensuing two years
Deputy Marshal ]. P. Cason reached the
city yesterday with the commitments for
Carter and George Higgins. negro who
was sentenced to FIVE years in the peni-
Tertiary for the larceny Of a registered
package from the mails, ard left on the
Florida Central and Peninsular north
bound train at l O'Clock this morning.
His prisoners accompanied him, Carter,
the ex-postmaster, with the detected air
and expression of a man who has lost his
last hope.
The man is in wretched health and ii
would seem a very miracle should he sur
vive even the comparatively short term
to which ne has been sentenced. The trou-
bic through which he has passed since the
charge of embezZlement was first brought
against him is evident in his face and walk
and has left its indelible imprint upon
him. he is not the Carter of old, post
master and country editor and
about everything else in the lit
tie town in which he lived,
who had style all his own and was wont
10 roast his political antagonists in a man.
ner that did not lack force, even if 1t was
sometimes or often wanting in taste He
was high in the counsels of the Populist
party, chairman of their State Execu-
tive Committee and a candidate on their
ticket FOR one of the most prominent Of
fees in the gift of the people. On his fire.
quent trips to Savannah he walked the
streets with q jaunty and self-assured
manner that marked him one of fortune
favorites and testified to his own apprecia-
ton Of his abilities and himself. That was
year ago.
Like many better man and many a
worse 1t was the buzzing Of the political
bee in his bonnet, the hove of popular APP
pause, the desire to crafty ambition and
10 raise himself In the estimation of the
world, the hope TO benefit his friends and
TO punish his enemies, that led Carter
from the path of honest rectitude and sim
pie truth. The viii of the wlsp, ambition,
led him on and on, and he followed, incl
dentaly gathering up the sheckels that
the government had condded to his charge,
and by their yellow glitter melting others
10 follow the same false light.
Carter says that the members Of the
Populist Executive Committee whispered
into his ear tale so strangely sweet he
could not choose but to listen and TO heed.
EIe was candidate on the ticket and they
pointed him to the end of a political vista
where arose the capitol of the state. in
his enraptured minds eye, Carter saw
himself sitting in the chair of q state
house officer, with nothing particular to
do other than to cock his feet on a ma
hogany desk and TO draw the fat sa airy
that the state allows for this form of labor
The members of the committee he tear
fully ayers, offered what to him appeared
indisputable evidence that the state could
be carried over into the Populistic camp
All that was needed was a comparative
small amount of the sinews of war. With
this In the possession of the committee, to
be applied where 1t would do the most
good success was certain and inevitable.
Where TO procure the sinews of war.
that must be procured, was the question
that confronted the members of the com
mittee, and that they in their despera ton
turned over to Carter. They did not have
them and neither did he, but the govern
ment had, and he held the key of the
stronghold in which they were kept The
result, given these conditions, with the
man with the key In the close grasp Of
the demon of ambition, was an obvious
necessity The money order funds of the
postoffice at Meldrim, within the ljurisdic-
ton of the District Court of the United
States for the eastern division of the
Southern District of Georgia, disappear
ed, the postmaster knew whittier and how
they had flown, and thereby hangs The tale
in which Carter poses as the victim of cir
Gums tances and the law
The postoffice inspector swooped down
on the office, saw that funds were miss
ing, accused Carter of embezzling them,
and had him arrested and taken before
commissioner. BY Commissioner j. f.
Lewis he was remanded for trial In the
District Court. In the meantime the po-
litical battle in which the money had been
spent had been fought and lost, and the
airy castle of Carter's dream dissipated
and driven far below the horizon by the
force of the political storm. In its place,
at the end of the vista that opened before
the vision of the soured, disappoiE ted and
broken man, rose the grim walls of the
penitentiary at Columbus, that will soon
close around him.
The man Is a wreck mental and physi-
cal The old hopefulness of his nature
had induced him to believe that when he
confessed his guilt and asked for the mer-
cy of the court when his counsel told of
the restitution and suffering Of his wife
and children, when attention was called to
his own weakness and ill-health, that six
months in Jail would be his sentence
When one of his attorneys excited the ire
of the court by an illadvised reference to
the manner in which the m-ney had been
spent, and Carter was sentenced to two
years in the peniteniary, he fairly coll
lapsed. He has never since managed TO
straighten out the crook in his back and
the kinks in his brain and his very APP
pearance and conversation bespeak the
deep pity of those who see aud talk 10
him.
Deputy Marshal Cason with his prison
ers will reach Columbus tomorrow and
Carter and Higgins viii then be turned
over to the warden of the penitentiary.
Higgins. with the carelessness of his race.
does not seem to be much cast down, and
though his term is three years longer
than is Carriers, he does not appear to feel
: half much