The West Virginian. [volume] (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1914-1974, 1919-12-20
EVERYBDDY'S FIGHT
50 THE JURY D0DGED
Another MistriaI in the
Celebrated Rodeheaver
Bootlegging Case.

"1s this a proivate foight or kin
anyone get into ut?" anxiously IN. IA,
ouired an Irishman one night recentiy
al he edged into a crowd Watching an
d-fashioned rough h-and-tumDie Oh
Water street.
Had that son OF Erin ben in JUS
tice Musgroves court yesterday an
ernoon he might have been accom-
modated. 1t was everybodys ngnt'
tbat is, everybody who had anything
10 saw either for or against (mostly
sSainst) Frank Bell or Harry Rohe-
HEAVIER.
boug g4ft.sa pint Of whiskey from Harry
Rode eheaver last November his testl,
mony varying very little from tnat Oh
the mistrial two weeks ago.
Documentary evidence Of consta-
bic was to the effect that he believed
that Frank habitually treads the prtnl-
role path of dalliance with the truth,
in other words he intimated that
Frank is. liar and If telling the truth
on this occasion is doing so for the
first and only time in his life.
Another prisoner was dragged &c
the scruff Of the neck from the county
jail and cast into the melee to testify
that Frank had told him he had
bought the whlskey in ClarksbuTg. A
voice from the tomb, the voice Of a
jurist who departed this life some
time ago, cast aspersions on ellis YER
acity through the medium OF eN-
dence read from former trial Of Bell
on statutary charge.
Attorney Ulysses Knopp for the de-
fenSe tried to establish q motive for
Bells action yshowing that Bell had
tried to make dates with Rodeheaver's s
wife, which she testified to on the
stand. The attorney addressing the
jury called Bell a creature who sought
to violate the sanctity Of the home
OF the accused, a snake in the grass
and other impoliate names. There's
a tradition that the serpent in the
Garden of Eden who had previously
walked upright soliloquized, I'm go
ing to work the apple game on that
Adams woman If it takes leg" And
he did, and it did. Neither did Attor-
ney Knapp leave Frank Bell a leg to
stand cn. Bloquently he thundered
his derunciation of the states chief
witness who, he claimed, had tried to
put away the Prisoner in order to steal
his one eve lamb.
Eehemently pounding with his fist q
large legal volume on the squire's
desk untiyl it was aImrat reduced to
a pulp, the attorney denounced the
witness one minute and the next plead
cd that the prisoner he freed and al
lowed to return, or rather 90, to work
Burning with indignation at the
rough treatment given his witness At
tOrney L. G. Musgraye sprang into
the fray. In summing up for the state
he in turn handled RodehNaTer with.
out gloves. The prisoner, he said, liv-
I'd in Nairmont for six months without
Iwor!dng. Had besn seen by a witness
making a Transaction back Of the Wat
son Hotel in mn alley much frequented
by those peripathetic merchants who
are known TO the trade as bootleg
gers. He once complained, as was
shown by another Witness that a suit
case coptedning a dozen quarts had
ibeeu stolen from him. Had boasted
! that tho Bulls couldn't get him.
/ Attorney Musgraye showed Rode
HEAVIER had beaten his vile, who had
him arrested, and told a number Of
people that her husband wouldn't
work or do anything but sell whiskey.
At last, however, the malodorous
case was given to a bewildered jury.
"If forty maids with forty brooms
Swept It for half year
Do you suppose" the Walrus said
"That they could make It clearT
"I doubt II" said the Carpenter
And shed bitter tear.
That the attorneys also failed to
make things clear to the jury develop
| ed when four Of the jury wouldn't join
] CONTINUED on page Sou-.)