The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-11
I'M FAR FROM A
 DEAD ONE YET"
Beattie Says Are More Le-
 gal Battles
WANTS A CITY JURY
Young Virginian Sent tenced to Die for Wife Murder Smokes Cigarettes and Chats About His
 Past Life
BY J. J. O'NEILL

l Chesterfield Courthouse. Va Septemb per h.-( Special. )-Through a blue haze of cigarette smoke at the window of ms little cell in the old colonial jail here, Henry Clay Beattie, Jr., who yesterday was condemned 10 die for having slain his young wife on the Midlothian turn pike on the night of July IS. this afternoon talked quite frankly about his affairs.
 I'm far from a dead one yet" he said as he grinned in man to man fashion at his interviewer. There's many a legal battle to come before they send me to the electric chair. think I'll get a new trial in another county. and with an up to date jury I'll be acquitted
 The rich youns man was more intersetd in dispatches from New York telling of ford's stage appearance than he was in his own fate, apparently. He asked to be shown the local papers containing these dispatches, and not until he had read them through would he go on and dis cuss his predicament
 ''I'll tell you. old boy" he said to the interviewer, "a fellows up against it when he .e to be tried by a bunch of countrynen from the backwoods like these that tried me l never had a chance from the beginning.
 They get married young, bring up big families. work around the farms. What do they know about a city, or a city 8 life? What do they know about how easy 1t is for a young fellow nowadays to get mixed up with girl like Beulah Binford? In a c1ty-you newspaper men from the north all know this-it's almost impos- s bie for chap with a little bit Of money and a motor car to avoid getting mixed up with these women. He can't help it Isn't that rlght2
 '-That's what they got me on-this Beu- lah stuff.' went on the condemned man, ing why he had been struck out in a baseball game. These farmers back here don't understand, that's all.
 T want to say again that I'm innocent. and that any jury of up to date young men or residents of a live city-even of Riohmond-would have freed me
 By the way. fellows" Besttie added T see a lot of talk in the papers about the possibility of me trying to end my own life. That's all rot. Believe me if finally must go to the chair I'll go there like man. No suicide for minei
 You have all said in your articles that was game. Well, I'm going to be game right through to the finish, whatever 1t is"
 Despite his declaration that he would not try to kill himself, he was guarded constantly last night and today by two officers who watched his every move ment. At the same time two men with loaded rifles walked as sentry outside the little jail. There has not been a murmur of a possibility that the citizens of Ches- terfeld county might decide to take the execution of the law into their own hands, but the officials were taking no chances.
 Beattie sent word to his father. brother and sister that he preferred that they should stay away from the jail today, ex- plairing that they would only suffer if they came out here. He said nothing about any possible suffering of his own.
 Beauties only worry was that he was obliged to stay in this little Jail out here. He wants to be transferred to Richmond, where he can hear the occasional honk Of a motor horn. or the rattle of a trolley car In front of the city jail
 Henry C. Beattie, ST, when approached by correspondents and asked about his hopes or fears for the future of his boy, broke down and wept and said, sob bingly:
 There Is nothing to say-nothing that can do."
 Paul Beattie, the cousin. who bought the fatal gun for Henry, and told on the witness stand of Henry's confession to him, said
 T am sorry for Henry Clay, but had to tell the truth I'm going to stay right here in Richmond, get back my old job as watchman on the Mayo bridge and turn down all these offers of large sums of money to go on the stage, or pose for moving pictures. Beulah Binford can do that if She wants to. but have a decent wife and a fine baby"
 One of the jurors, A. J. Fetterolof. spoke of the manner in which he and his colleagues had handled the case
 Prosecutor Wendenberg made a DOW erful argument but we did not need it. he said. We didn't need the story of Paul Beattie that his cousin had confessed to him. Once we were sure that Paul had bought the gun, and that this was the same gun found near the scene of the crime, we were certain he was guilty. And this evidence we got without a single word from Paul.
 Then, too, we felt that young Henry Beattie when he went on the witness stand in his own defense was lying"