Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-04-23
IA. cook HAS rHg Munps.
He Wanis to Sell Out oconee County, Chain.
gang, Road Machine, Guard and All.

Fort Madison, s. o., April 81, 1902..--
hditors keowee Courier: Once again we
ask for q little space In your columns.
Want to tell you that i have got the
mumps, or the mumps have got me,
don't know which. have always had
too much jaw, and now have more
than usual. j never did think before
that the mumps were catching, Judging
from tho fact that / have seen them
in one side and not in the other and the
Jaws not more than six inches apart.
This seems strange if they are catching
that the other jaw did not catch them.
But they have been very plentiful in our
vicinity recently and have got them all
the same, i must have caught them like
the first person that ever had them.
Suppose he did not catch them from any
body.
Well, Messrs. Editors, some of the
citizens of our vicinity have suggested
that if its possible that we hould get up
a sale and advertise and sell out Oconee
county, chaingang, road machine, guard
and all, and il half the reports which are
in circulation are true,-I think the people
should do something with them. One
citizen, who lives in the upper part of
the county, said that when the chain
gang was camped near his house that he
saw some of the convicts on the creek
fishing, while another part of the gang
was pretending to work on new road
which was being graded. Another man
told me that he passed their camp, on
new road near Chauga creek, and that
their guard was in the tent sleeping,
and the convicts were all out in the
woods shooting at a spot on stump.
Each convict had pistol and cartridges
furnished by the county. One negro,
who was serving sentence in the chain
gang, said that his time was about out,
hnt ha nnf 1ninn fhot 10
lived better there than at home, and that
he wished he could get his family in there
with him; that he would be perfectly sat
istied. We heard that one of our Com
missioners said that he would not agree
to audit any more accounts for cartridges
unless they brought in dead negro.
Now, suppose they were to bring in a
dead negro, it would only take one car
fridge to kill him, and its certainly not
right for the taxpayers of the county to
furnish cartridges free for a lot of negro
convicts to shoot at Stumps. In future
if a criminal is found guilty of crime
we should ask the Judge to change the
usual sentence from SO many months or
years at hard labor to so many months
or years at target practice. Also, the
law in regard to carrying weapons be
changed and say that it's violation of
the law for any person to carry pistol
except the negro convicts in tho chain
gang.
Now we want the terms of the sale
fairly understood. We will not promise
to make warranty deed to this prop
erty, but only quit claim title, for we
are certainly anxious to quit claiming it.
The purchaser will not be required TO
pay extra for papers, but will be required
to give sufficient bond for the support
and maintenance of the Supervisor and
the little crew who have been pretending
to work the convicts in the chaingang.
Now, Messrs. Editors, we remember
that when we wrote you before. several
months since, that some of the boys
jumped on us with both feet and we had
quite tilt. We are hardly we'll enough
now for such quarrel, but if it has to
come we have our time, place and equip
ments ready. Our time is when the
weather is fair and the ground dry, our
place is in our cornfield, our equipment is
the credit system, and so long as it holds
out and we can get rations we will De
able to fight the battle. j. A. Cook.