Year: 1877

past week. to remark that we Oellev-
ed the charge Brought against citi-
zen Of this county, of committing
a rape upon q girl of Is years old,
to be case of blackmailing. Our
article has been extensively copied,
and as some of the papers have taken
occasion to comment upon the case
in a manner which would indicate
belief in the guilt of the party ac-
cused, and leave the impression
that he was a man of position and
influence, whose friends were using
every exertion to screen him from
punishment, we have deemed it but
justice to him, to briefly state the
facts in the case, in order that the
evidence of his innocence might be
as widely extended as the insinua-
tions of his guilt have been un-
founded:


The accused is farmer of limited
means. living within q short distance
Of town, and engaged in market
gardening. During the summer
season he brings vegetables and
fruits to town and peddles them from
house to house. Among his GUS
toners was Mrs. Gray, mother of the
girl upon whom it was alleged the
rape was committed. This woman
occupied small shanty belonging
to the county, and situated near the
Jail. She had husband, who dur
ing short intervals of sobriety,
worked about town; the woman her.
self was seldom or never sober, and
her house was the resort of a set of
drunken and debased characters,
sunk in the lowest depths of degra-
dation. Tue police were frequently
called in to quiet a drunken distur-
bance or to arrest some of the
inmates.


This girl lived then with her
mother, growing up amidst scenes
which appal the imagination. Day
after day and night after night she
might have been seen travelling from
the house to the saloons in the vi
cinity procuring the liquor with
which her mother and her associates
stupefed themselves, ,and often when
refused liquor by the better class of
saloons she has been known to burst
into tears, saying that her mother
would beat her if she returned with
ont it. It was not difficult to foresee
the inevitable end which awaited
this girl-without single associate
of her own age, with her natural
protector, to whom she should look
for advice and instruction. continu-
ally stepped in drunken oblivion,
surrounded by a degraded set Of
wretches lost to all sense of shame,
watching with fiendish desire for an
opportunity to reduce this girl to a
level with themselves, and that op-
portnnity in the nature Of things
rapidly disclosing itself.


It was with full knowledge of
this state OF affairs, having had good
opportunity to notice the girl,
keenly alive to the dangers which
surrounded her, and being advised
by some of our leading citizens to
get her away from her mother, that
the accused applied for the girl as
an assistant for his wife on his farm.
After some time the mother consent
ed, to the apparent Joy of the girl.
and she went with him to the farm.
She remained with him some months
occasionally visiting her mother and
returning of her own accord to the
farm.


After a while the mothers conduct
became so bad thatthe County Com
missioners ordered her to leave the
house near the Jail, and she removed
to another part of town. Shortly
after the removal, the girls father
fell off the railroad into the bay and
was drowned, and the girl came
home.


Within few weeks the mother
married again, and the old practices
were renewed. About this time u
number of our citizens, becoming
interested in the condition of the
girl determined to save her from the
fate which so surely awaited her.
and which seemed so near at hand.
1'he Probate Court was applied to
to appoint a guardian for her, and
this man was named as the most fit
ting person to place her in charge
of-she had been living in his family
had always expressed deep affec-
tion fer them, and on one or two oc
casions had ran away from her moth
er's house to go there. 1t was at
this time, and not till then that this
damning charge was first thought of.
Prompted by evil and interested
advisors, led on by uDscrupulous
schemers inspired with the hope of
booty, and fearing the loss of an at
traction to her drunken revels, this
creature. abandoning the attributes
of womanhood. regardless of the
ties of nature, and careless even OF
the fate of her offspring, by the aid OF
abler confederates concocted this
scheme to extort money, and black
en- the fair name of q man who had
always borne an nnsnOtted reputa-
ton in the community in which he
lives.


The trial came on and in the prog.
ress developed deeply laid and
carefully considered scheme, beyond
the measure of this woman's concep