St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1906-12-15
DEAD, But CAN
NOT PROVE IT.
This Is the Status of AxhandIe Jack, Alias
Jack Austin.
JOHN HALL is ACQUITTED BY JURY
Criminal Case Without a Parallel Comes
to an End In the District Court
of St. Landry.

The most extraordinary crimins
case perhaps ever tried in Louisian
court came to end last Friday whe
John Hall was acquitted of strikin,
with intent to kill one Jack Allen
alias Axhandle Jack.
The case came up from Latanier
the new town made famous by Krotz
Springs, in the northern portion o.
st. Landry.
The accused, Hall, was commissary
man for an 0pelousas, Gulf & North
eastern Railroad camp. There came
from Melville, on a river tug, a laborel
whose name was Jack Austin, but
better known among railroad men by
the sobriquet of Axhandle Jack. 1t
was stated on the trial that he came
about this name by soaking niggers
with ak handles in Arkansas" as
slim" the witness, expressed it.
Jack applied for work, but he was re-
covering from a protracted spree,
and was in no condition to work. He
loitered around the camp, and was
given one or two meals at the camp
commissary. Hall received orders, so
the testimony goes, not to give Jack
any more meals. Jack applied to an
other camp near the one in question,
and was refused. He wandered back
to the camp for which he came to
work for and announced that he had
to have something to eat, as he was
hungry. Hall told him to get away
from there; that he didn't want to
have anything to do with him, and
would give him nothing to eat. With
this Hall stepped into another apart
ment, where, it seems, the groceries
and goods Of that sort are kept. Jack
followed him. When Hall went be-
hind the counter, raising a trap door
at the end of the counter to do so,
Jack advanced on him. Jack was
dealt a blow. Hall and witnesses say
with his fist. The State contended
that it was with a harder instrument,
supposedly tobacco cutter.
However, it is admitted that Jack
fell unconscious to the floor, and that
physicians were summoned, and that
the latter advised that the wounded
man be sent to the Charity Hospital
in New Orleans, which was immedia-
tely done, Hall paying the expenses Of
his transportation, together with
those of a man to accompany Jack
there.
The day after the affair man by
the name Of y. Austin, age AZ; resi-
dence, homeless; occupation, laborer,"
was entered in the Charity Hospital,
suffering, it is recorded, from alcohol
ism. Who brought him there, and
how he came to be registered as suf-
fering from alcoholism, is not known.
The hospital officials have no record
of anything except that he was en-
tered there. On September 1lth ].
Austin died. A coroner's inquest was
held, and a verdict that j. Austin
had come to his death from "a frac-
ture of the left angle of the eye
(supra orbital" was rendered.
Nothing has been heard of Jack
IAssstin, alias Axhandle Jack, struck by
Hall, nor of the man who was COM
missioned to bring him to the Charity
Hospital with fracture of the skull
above the left eye.
But still the State could not pos
itively establish the corpus delicti,
essential and fundamental to a CON
viction for murder, and although there
is not scintilla of donbt that the
j. Austin who died in the Charity
Hospital in New Orleans is the Jack
Austin, alias Axhandle Jack, who
was struck in Lantanier by John Hall
a few days before, the District At
torney had to nolle prosequi the in
dictment of murder rendered by the /
grand jury against John and file a
bill of information in the case for
striking with intent to kill. The
Continued an Page Five