Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-10
FIGHT STOPPED
BY EVANGELIST
REV. R. A. TORREY INVOLVED
IN SCANDAL
Great Soul Saver Has Been Staying
at Inn Alleged to Be Disorderly
and Place Where Liquor
Is Sold

Not content with saving the spiritual
being, Rev. r. A. Torrey, world re-
nowned evangelist, interfered in a fight
at an alleged disreputable hotel Satur-
day and undoubtedly saved Clarence
E. Wiley, keeper OF the place in ques-
ton, from severe bodily injuries.
The place in which the fight occurred
has been the dwelling place of DR.. Tor
rey and several of his brethren for
three weeks and is known as the Hunt
ington Beach inn. The great evangelist
has been conducting reyivals at Hunt
ington Beach and has met with en-
thusiasm and success. Crowds congre-
gate nightly to hear the great soul
saver discourse on the sins of drunken
ness, loose living and other roads to
eternal perdition, but while the eVange-
list was garnering in the sinners he
did not give much study to the habits
of the inmates of the inn at which he
stopped, for after the fight Satur-
day night Daniel O'Conner, wife of the
brother-in-laW of the innkeeper, sWore
to two complaints against Clarence II.
Wiley one charging him with keeping
a disorderly place and the other al
leging that whisky is retailed at the
hotel in question without due reference
to the laws governing the sale ana
distribution of said and same.
The fight which precipitated the gem
eral melee in which DR.. TOrrey came
to the front with such Vigor, arose from
n quarrel between the landlord and his
Wife's brother, Daniel O'Conner. In the
contest O'Conner rushed on his brother
in-law with heavy iron shovel ana
was about to beat his opponent with
the weapon when the evangelist rushed
into the fray and disarmed the infuri-
ated O'Conner.
Following the fight Mrs. Daniel
O'Connor sWore to complaints which
averred the inn was disorderly and
that whisky was retailed contrary to
the liquor laws.
The charges are especially sensa-
tional in view of the fact that Mrs.
O'Connor, from her intimate connection
with the landlord and her familiarity
with the way in which he conducted
his establishment, is supposedly well
Informed in regard to the kind of a
hostelry which was conducted under
the name of the Huntington inn, and
the charges have taken a more serious
aspect since Monday night when Will
lev left town forfeiting his 5000 bail
money
The fact that pious and irreproach-
able members of the great evangelical
bodies and personal followers of DR..
Torrev should have been so careless
as to choose as their abiding place a
resort which it not only not above sus-
picion, but is charged in legal COM
plant with being a resort of whisky
drinkers and disOrderly house has
caused tremendous sensation through
out the neighborhood, and prominent
ministers who have been interviewed
on the subject state it can only have
been due to the fact that the evange-
list was guilty of an oversight or else
did not fear to consort with publtcans
and sinners and believed he might be
able to convert them.
Developments are promised which in
volve many of the first families of
Orange county and prominent reform
ers and church workers are astounded
at the disclosures made in the com com
plants filed by the sister-n-laW or the
innkeener Five charges in all have
been preferred against Wiley but it
is believed unlikely that he will re-
turn to face them.
The LIQUOR selling case against Wiley
was to have been heard in the township
court this morning.