The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-07-18
THAT WAS swORKED BY A
VERY GREEN REPORTER.
Robert 4. Brown Tells of His Early
Experiences-The Lispenard
Case at Logansport.

-
Indiana's trained newspaper men.
II was so green at the time this Incl
dent occurred he continued. that 1 wore
a swallow-tail coat in making my rounds
as a reporter. This was in 1857 and I had
come up from my home tow to try my
hand at metropolitan newspaper report
ing. OF course you remember the awful
muss the Postofice Department got into
under Cleveland's administration in that
year. From the time Mr.. Cleveland took
office until the year 1887 affairs in the
postal service kept getting worse steadily.
Business men were making loud complaints
of the service and private citizens were
lifting up their voices in unison with the
general cry for something to be done TO
work a reformation. The paper for which
1 was reporting at the time concluded TO
work up a red hot article on the subject
one night. Accordingly, Will Fortune, who
was city editor at the time, sent me out
on an assignment which consisted in in
terviewing the big wholesale men on both
sides of Meridian street, from Washington
street down to the Union Station. / started
forth in all the splendor of my swallow
tail 10 do my masters bidding. Without
ever thinking of telling any of the men l
interviewed what my business was L asked
them in the boldest. greenest fashion ques-
tons that no seasoned reporter would
ever have thought of putting to anybody.
For some unaccountable reason, my men
talked freely and turned into the city
editor that night a batch of the warm
est talks on the subject of bad postal serv-
ice that anybody could wish to read.
SENT FIFE FIGURES.
Mr.. Fortune then told me to go over to
the postofice and ask Dave Elliott. chief
of the inquiry department, TO let me get
certain figures from the books of the post
office. Fortune hadn't the remotest idea
l would get what / went after. But, as
L said, / was green and accordingly L
went boldly UP to Dave Elliott and told
him glibly that l wanted to see such and
such books and to get certain informa-
ton from them. Dave let me get what
1 was after without interposing the slight
| est objection. When 1 turned in this last
batch of copy Fortune, Hornaday and
| the rest of the fellows about the news
| paper office nearly had a fit. One of them
said it was the most remarkable piece of
newspaper work he had ever heard about
and hi couldn't for the life of him under
Sldll0 INV l. udpOSACQ W nave uCu a
streak of pure luck. The article filled
about three or four columns of the paper,
| and created a tremendous sensation when
it was published the next morning. The
office of that newspaper was besieged by
| angry men who wanted to know how in the
name of sense things they said in conf
dence came to be published in a newspaper.
Dave Elliott was well-nigh crazy over
the way he had been worked 1 saw
nothing unusual in the affair myself. for
the reason that / didn't know quite as
much then as 1 do know. Shortly after
wards 1 went over TO Logansport to ac-
cept a position on one of the papers in that
city. / hadn't been there very long until
i received a telegram from the managing
editor of the Indianapolis paper referred
to, saying that L would probably be ar
rested very soon, but that need not
worry, since his newspaper would stand
by me. j at once boarded a train and
went to Indianapolis. proceeding straight
to the. newspaper office after reaching the
capital. Arriving there L learned that /
was to be arrested by the United States
officers for having impersonated a United
States officer. IF that is what 1 am TO be
arrested for said i, L am not going to
worry my head about it much. did not
tell anybody l was an officer nor did I
/ tell them who or what L was. l just simply
asked people certain questions and received
those wholesalers and Dave Elliott all
thought l was an officer connected with the
Postoffice Department at Washington and
had been sent out here to make an inves-
tigation of the Indianapolis postoffice and
its workings. No wonder they talked so
readily to me-, was it?"
L~ISPENARD'S LIFE.
Mr.. Brown is full of good stories, and
| while he was in a reminiscent mood he re-
lated the strange life story of Chas. A. Lis
penard. "Lispenard was a contracting paint
er in Logansport in the late eighties" said
he. land it was only by accident that / heard
of his interesting career. His first appear
ance in Indiana was in Benton county, when
he was a mere baby. Along with a lot of
other children he was sent from the East
to be placed in a home somewhere in the
Hoosier State. That practice used to be
very common. and is. in fact, in vogue in
portions of the country to this day. Young
Lispenard did not fall into good hands. He
was intruSted 10 a miserly farmer. who
nearly starved the child to death. The
farmers boys abused the 'pauper' in the
most outrageous fashion. They kicked and
cuffed him and made him do all the
drudgery about the house and farm. One
day their ingenuity for human torture was
tested to the limit. They took a notion
they would hang Lispenard, and accord
ingly proceeded at once 10 carry out their
plan. The boy would have died If a neigh
Dor had not CHANGED to run across him in
the barn hanging to a beam and cut him
| DOWN III time 10 save MS lie. Ine Door
boy decided to go out into the world and
make his fortune alone. He went first TO
Lafayette and finally landed in Logans-
port, where he soon started to work as a
painter in a small way. Later he branched
| out into contract painting. One day he
was standing on the depot platform at
Logansport, waiting for a train, when a
| stranger came UP to him and said: Your
| name is not the one by which you are
known here. 1t is Lispenard. 1 know your
family well. Your father was a cabinet
maker in New York, and one day your
mother sent you, little tad that you were,
dow 10 your fathers shop TO bring her
back some shavings. On your way to the
shop you were kidnapped and brought out
here TO Indiana. Your brother is a jeweler
in New York at this time
TRUE STORY.
Through a friend of Lispenard I got
wind of this story. and at once set about
te~legraphing to New York to verify 1t. so
that 1 could use it in my paper at Logans-
port. and also in an polls paper
for which / was correspondent. 1 found
out that the story was true in every de-
tail. | made a three-column article of it in
my own paper. and sent in TO indianapolis
all thought the paper there would use. I
remember distinctly that the Associated
Press people came TO me to get something
/ ah0uf IL ard ave or sly hfC Nam VnrL