Norwich bulletin., 1913-04-22
Snapped Youth
 Into the River
FOUR CENTRAL VERMONT EN-
 PLoYES ARRESTED.
THE VICTIM DROWNED
Prisoners Had Accused Young Negro
 tested His Innocence, But in Vain.

Bolton, Vt, April 21.-A negro youth of about 19 years who wandered into the Winoosl1i river where he was drowned, it is charged, by four men, three of whom had accused him of stealing their dinner pails.
 Three of the men charged with the death of the boy, Henry NcCabe, John Sweeney and John Kennison, all of this town were arrested last night and taken today to the Jail at Burlington Their conepanion, Henry Goodrich. also of Bolton, disappeared. and was not captured until tonight.
 Snapped Into the River.
 Kennison volunteered the circum- stances of the negros death and the police say that his story was corrob- orated by the other prisoners. Accord ing to their version of the affair the boy was an unwilling participant in a game of snap the whip which crowned their efforts to extort a con snapped the bictim shot into the stream and sank after brief struggle.
 The men in custody are section hands employed on the Central Yer mont railroad. McCabe Is the fore man of a section gang, about forty years of age and single. Kennison is thirty, married and has two children. Sweeney is forty and has 8 wife and two children.
 Sesn Near the Dinner Fails.
 
 that he strayed into Vermont frouo somewhere in South Carolina and found employment at Essex Junction. where a dam has been under conStruc- tion. His name is not known here He finished his job Friday night and the following morning started south along the Central Vermont railroad track. His path led him by the spot where McCabe, Sweeney and Kennison had left their dinner paifs. They noticed the boy and thought of him again when at noon their dinners were miss ing. In another moment they were running down the track in the direc- tion that the lad had taken. After chase of a mile they saw him enter ing the village.
 Protested His Innocence.
 He saw them. too, and broke into a run, but the men were faster and they caught him he stumbled up the steps leading to the house Of A. c. Huntley. Protesting his innocence the youth was dragged back over his tracks and locked up in a laborer's shanty. He was told that he would be given until three o'clock that after confinement only served apparently to strengthen the prisoners purpose, for when the door of the shanty was again opened he denied more positively than before that he had fed at the ex- pense of the railroad men,
 "snappins of the Whip"
 By that time Goodrich had joined the party and going to the river bank the men formed a chain by joining hands with N1cCabe on one end and Sweeney, Kennison, Goodrich and the boy in the order named. At a word from the leader they dashed down the bank. When near the brink the men stopped suddenly in the schooiboy way and his hold being broken, the negro tail of the ''whipS snapped out over the water and disappeared in a whirl- pool.
 Kennison kept the affair on his mind until night when he sought out MT. who had witnessed the cap ture and upon his advice told his story to the police.
 Goodrich Arrested.
 CooCr:ch was taken into custody to- night a: the home of a brother in Rnrlinf ton. He was found hiding ur- der a bed, according to the police, and made no resistance