Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-05-24
Entered Upon His Ten Years.
Sentence Today.
A COMP OF CASES
OF a Similar Nature Of Which Silver
Bow Bow County Has Been
II
the Scene,

James j. Neary, who Killed Alexander
Murray with a knife and was convicted
of m~anslaughter for the deed, has con-
Guided to not attempt to get the court to
grant him a new trial and thus compel
him to take chances on being convicted
in a greater degree. or at least he believes
chances for securing an acquittal are so
slende that he can save time by COM
mencing his term of six and a half years
without further dalay. This morning he
was taken to the penitentiary by Deputy
Sheriff Aware and is at the present time
wearing the prison regalia.
There was only one difference between
the crime committed by Robert Works
at the Duggan house in Dublin gulch a
year or two g and the one perpetrated
by Neary-Works shot and killed a man
named Daily while the latter was
assaulting him, and Neary knitted Murray
to death several minutes after the latter
assaulted him. Both defendants we've
convicted in the same degree, man
slaughter, and given the limit by the
court.
Neither of these cases compare with
that in which a man named Wirts was the
defendant Il few years ago, and yet
Wirts was acquitted. He kept a saloon in
Dublin gulch and had among his patrons
a miner named Ellsworth Edgehill, One
evening Edgehill drank some of the
whisky sold by Wirts and it made him
noisy. He wanted to fight, but could find
no n to accommodate him. Wirts did
not like Edgehill because the latter had
challenged him IL a go" He left the
bar In charge OF his wife, went to a gun
store and purchased some cartridges,
loaded a revolver and eturned to the sa-
loon. By that time the bad booze in
Edgehill had died and Edgehill had fallen
asleep in a chair against the wall at the
opposite side of the bar. His head in
cined forward and his hands rested in
a crossed position over his abdomen,
There was no one present and Wirts
without further ceremony placed the
muzzle Of his old blunderbuss in direct
line with the sleeping mans heart and
pulled the trigger. The bullet killed
Edgehill instantly and in the position des-
cribed his body was found by officials
and the coroner. Wirts claimed he had
murdered Edgehill in self defense and as
there were no witnesses to the shooting
he was acquitted.
Some time after this Wirts opened an
other saloon in East Park street and sold
" al" soHle VI HIS uelilSefent brand of
booze. 1t affected the consumer the
same as did that which Edgehill had
swallowed in the Dublin gulch Joint and
he proposed to do a little fighting. AS
there were several persons present Wirts
could not very we'll shoot the disturber
without being seen; so he had him ar
rested. The man was taken to the city
JAN and Wlrts followed him into the jail
er's office. With the exception of a re-
porter for one of the daily papers, the
two men were left together a few min
utes before the charge was entered. They
quarreled, Wirts doing the most of the
talking. At one period of the jaw con-
troversy he leaned forward and Kissed
between his teeth: Had there been no
one else in that room they would have
taken you out of there on a stretcher.'
This remark cause Wirts to leave the
city as soon as he could close up his af-
fairs, for on the following day it was pub