Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1908-02-26
LEXINGTON AND DAVIDSON COUNTY,
Prisoners Make Effort to Escape. Demand
tor Labor Decreased.

Prisoners Make Effort to Escape. Deman
tor Labor Decreased.
: Lexington Dispatch. Feb 18th.
Pearl Taylor, who accident
ally shot himself while out hunt
ing at Whitney, is improving. W
are plased to state that he will no
lose the sight of his eye, as was a
first supposed.
Coal has taken.a slump in price
but few will ever find it out. Al
AshevilIe paper says that peopl,
are still paying $6 and 1925 fol
the fuel, although over in Knox
vile, Jellico coal is selling fol
$3.50 in ton lots, and the freight
from Knoxville to Asheville is but
20 cents ton. The slump in
price is due to falling off of the
demand, and the throwing into
hands of receivers several concerns
in Tennessee. One large coal oper.
ator said he didn't have an order
for a ton. There is plenty of coal
and little demand.
The small fry on Friday night
celebrated Valentine day by noisy
vlsltatlons to many"houses, and
one crowd carried the fun too far
and threwhrocks. The house of
Jesse Ford was rocked, for one,
and Saturday several youthful Of
tenders were before the mayor.
Zeb Weaver, Luther Proctor and
Holland Newsom were required to
give $50 bonds for their appear
ance at court. Young Newsom
left on Monday, although his
mother put up $50 in cash for
him, and is said to have 'phoned
from Linwood that he would not
attend court, but he came back
Monday night, We hear,
A well-known Guilford county
man was in Lexington one day
last week, and in conversation
with Chief Hayworth stated that
one of the foremen of Lane Bros,
told him that Oscar Gaddy, the
negro who murdered Foreman Eu-
banks near Lexington, was GER
tainly killed on the very day the
murder was committed.
Talking about the great change
that has taken place in business
matters within the last few
months, man who employs a
good many men at times said +:
"People got the idea in their
heads that there never would be
any more hardtimes. The COM
monest unskilled labor was SC in
dependent that you could hardly
keep force. Men who had never
got more than Is cents day got
$3.50 and didn't care whether
they worked or not. I had some
jobs last year that I had to com
plete within q certain time, and
the trouble I had with laborers
almost ran me crazy. Now it is
quite different. The demand for
labor has gone and in its place
there is demand for work."
But for an alarm raised by 9TH
er prisoners in the Jail" Sunday
morning about 8 o'clock, at least
two, and perhaps, more prisoners
would have been missing whenJail-
er johnson made his usual rounds
at dawn Luther Snuggs and Char
lie Smith, two young white men,
attempted to dig their way out
through the brick wall of the build
ing. The jailer was aroused by sew
eral of his prisoners calling him,
and on entering the room he found
that the two men had almost pier
ced the wall. They we're using a
piece of poker, taken from the
stove. Two holes had been dug,
one at the side of the lower win.
dow on the north side of the
"jail," and one directly under
another window on the same side
both on the first floor. The first
had evidently been abondoned be-
cause the wall was too hard fol
swift digging. It was about half
way through the wall. But the
second hole reached to the las
line of bricks and in a few mo
ments more would have easily per
mitted a man to crawl through.