The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1904-08-24
GOES UP FOR LIFE.
A White Murderer Sent to the
Penitentiary from saluda.
4 GOOD EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW.

4 GOOD EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW.
Judge Watts Tells the Convicted
Man Of the Enormity Of his
Crime and the Justice Of
the Sentence.
a special dispatch from Saluda to
The News and Courier says the notice
of motion for a new trial in the
Thrailkill case, was abandoned by de-
fendant's attorneys, and the prisoner
arraigned for sentsnce. In passing
sentence Judge Watts said:
You have been tried and convicted
by jury Of your country OF murder.
1t is now my painful duty to pass SEN
tence upon you. I am always sorry
for any cne who Is in trouble and dis
tress. But you have violated the law
Of your country. A jury Of your coun.
try have found you guilty Of murder,
and have recommended you to the
mercy Of the Court. l am OF the opin-
ion that the verdict was warranted
absolutely by the facts Of the case. I
do not see how the jury could have
done otherwise under the testimony
in the case than to have found the
verdict they did. I think it is going
to have happy effect throughout the
State OF South Carolina, because the
people of this State will learn that a
man Of respectable character and with
property can be convicted when he
commits a crime, the same as the
poor, the ignorant and the unlettered.
There has been too much shooting in
South Carolina. Men too much have
taken the law in their own hands.
You cannot pick up a newspaper but
what you will see that somebody has
been killed. Defendants come in
Court and make an effort at self-de-
fence. I heard the Solicitor Of the
9Th district say he was absolutely
afraid to blow his nose in the Court
House because he carried his handker.
chief in his hip pocket and was fear.
full that somebody might take that as
an excuse for shooting him. There is
no doubt in my mind that you went
up to Monetta with malice in your
heart and blood on your mind. You
went up there to pick row, 1t seems
to me, with the school teacher. What
the cause of trouble was between you
and him I do not know, but he (the
teacher) seemed to be a very inofen-
sive and quiet young fellow. You
had no right to take the law in your
hands. The worst feature Of your
whole case, to my mind, is that you
loaded your shotgun with buckshot
and you gave your eighteen-year-old
boy a pistol, and carried him along
with you. A boy, especially one 18
years old, will do anything his father
tells him to do. I think your son is
more to be pitied than to be blamed
He was acting under your orders.
You went up there to harm the school
teacher and got into an alteration
with the brother Of the man you SUBJ
sequently killed, and as far as I can
learn you shot him for no cause at all,
and you concluded you would clean up
the crowd. When his. brother came
down, as it was natural that he should
do, on hearing that his brother had
been shot, you shot him down with.
ont giving him dogs chance. BE
might have been bad man. I do
not know anything about that. The
testimony developed the fact that he
had had some fights in his life.
Unfortunately and unluckilY all
Of US have done the same thing. /
suppose if I was on trial you could
rake up some fight I have had and so
far as that Is concerned, most every
body else in this Court room. The
older man gets the more he realizes
that fighting does not pay. I would
take a great deal before would fight
under any circumstances. The man
who wins his fight usually gets the
worst Of it. I would rather be the
dead man than the live one-that is,
I would rather be dead than to have,
to kill man. do not think man
has much happiness when be takes
the human life, unless he does it
acting strictly in self-defence. The
The law Is that no man can claim
seH.defence unless he Is without fault
in bringing on the quarrel and diff.
Guilty. 1t seemed to me as II you
could feel it in the air around the
Court House that those people around
about Monetta seemed to be afraid to
testify in this case. 1t actually looked
as if they had been terrorized some.
how. You are the most determined ed
man I ever saw. You went to
Monetta for a certain purpose and
you carried it into effect. I think
the jury deserve great credit for find
ing the verdict they did, and l think
it is happy omen for this coun-
try, going to show that the peo-
pie Of Saluda County are tired OF
lawlesSneSs, are tired Of so much
bloodshed, and in fact they are deter
mined to cut it down and place this
county on an equality with other coun-
ties in this State so far as law and
good order are concerned.
This is one OF the finest counties l
ever saw in my life. Its people, white
and black, are courteous and polite,
and l cannot understand why there
should be so much shooting. I am sor-
ry for you, I am sorry for your wife, !
am sorry for your children. I have got
five children myself. I have frequent
ly wished, on occasions Of sentencing
defendants, that the punishment
could fall upon the guilty one. Your
wife and children will suffer because
of violation of the laws OF the land.
Nothing that we can do can bring the
dead man back to life, and his wife
and three little children. It is one OF
the saddest cases that I ever saw in
INV life T tr1lSf vo11 will make yo11T