The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-18
CRIMINAL CASES ARE NOW ON TRIAL Otto Gossett Guilty of Assault With Intent to Murder TO MANUFACTURE FILING First Material of the New Concern at TaIadega Will Be Used In the
 New ostoffice-Peaches
 Are Frozen.
TO MANUFACTURE FILING

Talladega, April 17.-(Special 1.-The
 criminal division of the city court is in
 session and will continue five weeks. Yes l terday the case of Otto Gossett was
 called and tried. Gossett was the man who deliberately fired on a group of ne- groes who were talking together in a sa-
 loon, In order. as he says. to show them | they were not as bad men as they thought themselves.
 l When his case of assault with intent
 to murder was called 1t appeared that no
 lawyer represented him. and Judge Miller
 did not appoint counsel for him, as it is I his honor's custom to appoint lawyers I only In capital cases. The jury remained l in consultation only twenty minutes,
 bringing in verdict of guilty as charged | in the indictment.
 Charley Johnson, colored, was next con- victed on an assault to murder another | negro named Will Estill Charlie tried very hard to put the blame of the shoot l ing on another Johnson-his brother
 who has fled, but the jury wouldn't have
 1t that way. During this trial a white l witness swore to the good character of l the negro defendant, and he was asked
 if he hadn't heard that the defendant was
 "crap shooter" That makes no dif-
 ference in my estimation of his char
 acter.' replied the witness, "all negroes
 will shoot craps.
 1 The case of the state vs. Will Allen
 was called this morning. Quite cloud of witnesses were in attendance. A motion made to continue the case because of
 the legal engagements in Shelby county
 in civil case of Hon. Cecil Browne, the
 defendants lawyer, is pending.
 Chancellor w. w. Whiteside has con-
 tinued the May term of the chancery
 court of this division from the first Thursday after the second Monday in
 May to Friday, the 31st day of May.
 There are but few cases on the chancery
 court docket, the majority of cases of
 this character being brought in the
 equity division of the city court. l A young man named J. P. Mayo, IS
 years old, living south of the city, died 1 from the effects of a fracture of the skull I Tuesday. He had been i'll for several
 days and on this morning he attempted | to walk out on the porch of his home, but he had miscalculated his strength, | and fainting he fell to the ground. lie never regained consciousness, but died
 from the effects of the fall.
 The three shanties on the south side
 of the Louisville and Nashville railroad
 depot are gradually being deserted. A ! week since a market man moved out of l af a small reStaQar- l ant keeper a white man. folded up his 1 tent like& an Arab and silently moved
 away" not being able to stand negro l restaurant next door, and so the only
 tenant of this eyesore block is "Cullud l Gemman," who serves hard billed eggs l and ham, to people with strong appe-
 tites These rookeries are to be removed 1 May 1. as the Louisville and Nashville
 road has bought the ground for the pur- pose of erecting d depot.
 Conniff Sz Co. is using the Warwick lv-
 cry stable building as a manufactory of l Octagon cement tllng. The first Install
 ment of this tiing is to be used for the
 flooring of the new post office. A brick addition east of the present postof1ice l building, and joined to 1t. has been built,
 which will somewhat help the present 1 crowded condition of that place. New
 furniture and combination lock boxes will
 be put in but even with this the room l and surroundings of the postoffice are
 totally inadequate for the present popu- l lation of the city. Talladega should have
 a federal building with a commodious l postoffice.
 l The log fires failed to save the peach 1 orchards here. Dr. l.. J. Wright filled his
 orchards with roaring leg fires and stayed
 awake all night tending to them and re-
 plenlshing the logs, but all without avail. 1 While this method may have been sue- 1 cessful elsewhere 1t did not prevent the 1 freezing of the Elbertas on the mountain 1 side south of the city.
 OFFICERS ELECTED