The Topeka state journal., 1909-02-20
WORK
Make Raid on Topeka Cemetery
Last Night.
Many Gravestones Thrown
Down and Broken.
OFFICERS ON A HUNT.
ElOOdhOunds Furnish Clue tC
the Sheriff.
BOYS Found Who Admitted They
Were Near Cemetery.

Residents of Topeka were startled
this morning by the report that ghouls
had been at work in the Topeka ceme-
terry during the night and Sheriff WIKI
erson and a posse including two blood
hounds left for the scene of the depre-
dations Immediately. An investigation
Gisproved the report that graves had
been tampered with. though it is evil
dent that vandals had made a visit to
the cemetery.
Forty or fifty small monuments and
slabs We're tumbled from their bases
during the night and four or five of
them broken into pieces and ruined.
The indications are that the vandals
entered the cemetery at the gate near
the end of the street car tracks and
wandered about, overturning the small
er stones wherever the notion struck
them. They meandered through the
southeast portion of the cemetery in
places turning over three or four stones
adjacent to each other and then leav-
ing the locality for another not far
away.
The manner in which the vandals
did their work indicates that they
were prompted by purely malicious mo-
tives and not on account of spite
against any one in particular. The
greatest damage which will amount to
the portion of the cemetery south of
the street car entrance and extending
about 100 yards to the west
The fact that the ground was not
frozen last night greatly lessened the
damage done as the majority of the
slabs and stones partially buried them
selves in the soft earth and did not
break. Where a stone struck another
one it broke as did a number of the
shafts and thin slabs. The cross walks
at Sixth avenue and Leland street were
overturned which indicates that the
same gang of hoodlums may have
ted their night work by overturning the
gravestones.
A number of the young toughs of the
CITY live in the district adjacent and be-
yond the cemetery and 1t IS thought
that they are to be blamed for the
nights work. a dance was held at a
house near the corner of Eighth avenue
and Lawrence street last night and the
police believe that the work IS that OF
some of the young men who either at
tended the dance or hung about on the
outside.
Complaints of petty depredations in
this part of the city of late have been
common and the opinion prevails that
one or more joints are being operated
quietly or that bootleggers are furnish
ing the young men of that section or
the city with whisky. The pohce nave
had more or less trouble with boys who
live in this section of the city and be-
lieve that the damage was done by
them.
The work done last night does not
suggest ghouIs but rather the work of
thoughtless, worthless boys who did
not even attempt to tamper with the
graves. D. o. Crane, who owns the
cemetery, will place force of men at
work and the damage as far as possi-
her of stones however. are so badly
broken that they cannot be repaired
and will have to be replaced with new
ones.
Blood Hounds on Trail.
Sheriff Wilkerson, Mitchell Bundy, |
Chief of Police Eaton and Henry Mon |
roe with Sheriff Wilkerson's blood |
hounds arrived at the cemetery about |
$50. The dogs were taken to the
gate at the end of the street car line
and Immediately took up the trail and |
followed it through the cemetery past
stones which had been over |
turned during the night. They left
the cemetery at the southeast corner |
and took out across a pasture lot at
full bay. They crossed this diagonally, |
passed through an opening in a hedge
fence up over a hill and across val |
ley beyond.
The trail then led them to a road
inst north of the Bellview school
house and they made directly for the
home of Mrs. Sophia Lane after they
left the wood. Her son, Zoe Jones. |
colored stone mason, was routed out
and accompanied Chief Eaton to the
city though he was not placed under
arrest. He told a straight story of
his whereabouts during the night and |
it is not believed that he had any
part in the depredations of the night. |
He was accompanied through the |
latter part of his journey home by |
two young men and Sheriff Wilker- |
son called on the McLain brothers
who live at East Hill and who ad- |
mitted that they were in the vicinity |
of the cemetery but both claimed |
that they did not go inside.
cIIAHMED WHITE unIIcE