The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1900-06-02
WIFE BEATER PUNISHED
New Jersey Whitecaps Gave
Afford a Coat Of Tar
and Feathers.
Especial 10 rrhe Jersey city News."l

BRIDGEToN, June 2, 1sO0-Smith
Afford, a glass maker Of this place,
wears complete suit of tar and feathers
today and will spend the next couple
of weeks in excruciating torture, as the
result of the wrath of his neighbors,
whose whole moral sense had been
stirred to mob fury by Affords abuse
and maltreatment of his sick wife.
There were women among those who
encouraged ..4e tar and feathers party
the wives and mothers of Bridgeton
Twelve sturdy citizens of Bridgeton
applied the tar and feathers to Afford in
the darkest hours of the beginning Of
today, while the bruised and half-starved
body of his dead wife lay in their South
Bridgeton home, and their two sweet lit
tie girls were crying their eyes out Tor
their mamma at the home of a neigh
bor.
Affords abuse Of his shrinking, faith
full wife had been a town scandal 1or
years. It took every form known to
british man. Besides personal violence
to her, he had openly consorted with low
women and taunted her with the fact.
she died, neglected, unattended by any
physician, on Decoration Day.
'sWell, now she's dead I can have all
the fun I want" Afford is quoted as
saying as he stood by the bed on which
his wife had just expired.
The children, taken home by neish-
Dor, told that their father had abused
their mother even as she entered the
valley of the shadow of death.
Indignation filled the breast of every
one of the 15. .0O0 people of Brighton. There
were threats of summary punishment OF
Afford Indeed Iynching was the top.c
of whispered conversation in many circles.
To all of this Afford only laughed de-
risively, and the public pulse was slow
ing down and the fever of outraged de-
cency was abating when it was dis
covered that even before his wife's body
had grown cold and the rtgor of death
set in, Afford had addressed a note to
one of his female friends. beginning with:
'FMy own darling sweetheart"
This famed public Indignation into
fury again, and staid men of this place
| took steps to show the feeling of an
outraged community. They went about
their work quietly, calmly and without
haste.
The Mayor and the police had not got
an inkling of what was afoot and 1t was
not until some late strollers on the streets
of South Brdgeton CHANGED to see sink
ing, covering figure stealing along Gar
field avenue at 1:S0 this morning, and
| catching it, found that it was Smith Al
| ford, thickly daubed with tar and coated
with feathers, trying, half dead, to sneak
back to his wife after a terrible interview
with his neighbors.
! AT t0:3O last night party of twelve men
all masked and each garbed strangely IN
garments that disguised them completely
knocked at Affords door. They got no
answer. but they knew Afford was there
| and broke in the door.
BEHIND the masked men were several
| women, wives and mothers Of Bridge
toms leading citizens.
The man in front carried rope with
a suggestive moose in the dangling end
Other men had ropes, too.
Afford took this all in at a glance. He
had hastily drawn on his trousers, while
his callers were beating down the door,
Land he stood barefooted before them.
| His face was white and his legs shook
| with the tremor of abject terror. He
begged piteously for his life, but no
word was spoken by the grim figures in
masks and dominoes.
Silently they seized the man who had
stirred the whole community to wrath
by his outrageous conduct They PIN
toned his arms and then dragged him,
struggling from the house of the dead.
Down Garfield avenue and out into the
bush and swamp that skirts the town
they led him.
| They had no intention of hanging the
| fellow, but they did not inform him.
There were the noosed ropes with all
their awful significance ,and the mental
torture through which Afford passed was
agonizing.
He yelled Justly for. help at first, but
| none came. His cries were soon stopped
by the application of a bandage across
his mouth, tied at the neck.
| In the thick of the woods, mile and
a half from her house, the silent men
halted. The women had been left at the
edge of the swamp at the end of Garfield
avenue.
The men quickly stripped Afford and
then quickly and dexterously the contents
of a bucket of tar was smeared ell over
the man below the bandage over his
mouth, thus leaving his eyes untouched.
Then the contents of a feather bed was
emptied upon the tarred body, and in less
time than it takes to ten it, Smith Afford
was completely costumed in tar and
| feathers, warranted to stick to his Itch
| ing, burning cuticle until it wears off by
the slowest process imaginable.