The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1911-07-29

was armed and ready. l intended to
give him good, sound whipping, and
| did that. BY his vicious and coward
ly attack upon me with its invasion
of the silent city of the dead where
my sainted mother sleeps, with its
dissertation Of her sacred tomb, he had
forfeited his right to live, but I did
not want to kill him. Solely because
did not care to shed his blood,
made him a present Of his worthless
life.
His statement about being beaten
into insensibility and Inconsistencies
Is utterly untrue. He was never un.
conscious, stood up in the car, straigh.
tened out his clothing, engaged in or.
binary conversation with two or three
gentlement when / was through with
him, and made arrangements for medi-
cal attention as soon as the train could
reach Sturgis. 1t was not uncon-
seriousness, merely cowardice, when he
whined and bleated and apologized.
He first made partial retraction and
apology, which l did not accept, and he
then made full and complete apology
and retraction. He was not an un-
conscious man only an arrant coward,
and would not even take his whipping
like man. | was not behind him,
did not strike him from behind, and
spoke to him before hitting him, first
demanding an apology and retraction
OF his language. The only time that
touched him from behind was when
kicked him a few times where it
would do the most good.
AS for the statements about Ross
Collins being covered with a pistol
and held in a corner of the car, this
is absurd. The truth is that at the
first intimation of trouble, Collins ran,
and ran in a hurry. He left the
smoking compartment, ran into the
negro car, and hid in the negro water
closet, where he stayed hidden until
the train pulled out of Starkville. This
fact will be verified by the evidence
Of at least four disinterested white
witnesses who were riding upon the
train. He was probably wise in doing
so, as he is the man who had taught
Bilbo the unspeakable infamous Ian
suage employed about me. There was
no crowd" or gang" with me when
whipped Bilbo, and the only man
there was my kinsman, ]. D. Nichols.
My Starkville friends knew nothing of
he difficulty until after it was over,
and did not even know was in town
Ross Collins may have been present
n spirit, but in his bodily person, he
was playing hide and seek" in that
negro water closet.
Mr.. Nichols has been a Woodworking
farmer for many years and is now en-
gagged in the mercantile business at
this place. No man in the communi-
ty stands higher as an upright, law
abiding citizen. l had no connection
whatever either with the publication
Dr. distribution of any circulars about
Bilbo. The state has been flooded with
various political circular. l did hap
pen at one time to have probably two
copies of the Bilbo circular, that had
been incidentally handed to me, and
gave one Of them to a man by the
name of Cole, who was asking me
questions about him that | could not
answer. l merely happened to have
it in my pocket and gave it to Cole
at his request.
Bilbo in his speech at Blue Noun
tain, made an attack upon me that de-
manded resentment; without it, q
would have been unworthy the respect
or confidence of my family and
friends. ,,<
He denounced me as, "a cross be-
tween a hyena and a mongrel, begot-
ten in a niger graveyard at mid
night, sucked by SOW, and educated
by fool"
He does not deny but admits that
he used the language. He only I'M
dertakes in his statement to argue
that it was not insulting" 1t might
not have been insulting to him, but it
was insulting to me. | would not have
used such language about him or any
other living human being.
My parents are both dead and in
heaven. Their memory is sacred to
me. My father was a Confederate sol
der who died upon the field of bat
tie; only private, but no better or
Drawer man ever lived. His loving
comrades at dead of night laid him
away in his tattered, gray uniform,