Thursday, February 21, 2019

Crime and Punishment Reports in Rockingham Paper Feb,. 20, 1919

From the Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Feb. 20, 1919

Stranger Fleeces Greek

George Christ, Greek café proprietor here, is anxious to place his hands upon a young man about 21 years old, wearing a blue serge suit, gay shirt and tie, and soft black hat. A young man thusly described struck town last Friday and engaged board at the café and rooms from the Greek over the Hall garage. He came with only a suit-case. When Christ visited the room Monday afternoon he found most of the effects gone—and the stranger, too. The man smuggled a trunk upstairs, broke open the door between the room he occupied and Christ’s room, and Monday morning stole nearly all the things portable, packing them in the trunk, then hitting the grit on the 10 o’clock train for Charlotte. Christ went to Charlotte Monday night hunting his boarder, but found him not. And doubtless the Greek will hereafter closely scan every blue-suited stranger he sees.

Tenth Blockade Still

Sheriff McDonald has cut the tenth notch on his blockade still eradication stick.

On Thursday morning of last week he and deputies Reynolds and Key found a small outfit hid in various parts of Rev. Jim Peter Covington’s two-room house six miles from town, in Black Jack township. Evidently the still was used for operation in doors. In a closet was found an empty barrel that is thought to have held mash, and in the barn nearby was a barrel two-thirds full of mash-beer. 

Covington says the outfit does not belong to him; that it was “left there” by a stranger. At any rate, the Sheriff required him to furnish a $300 bond and will give him the opportunity of explaining the matter before Squire Guthrie Friday morning at 10 o’clock.

Mayor’s Court

Cases before Mayor McNair the past week:
Sandy Johnson submits Monday night to being drunk Saturday and is taxed with costs, amounting to $1.95.

George Penfield and George Best engaged in an affray in the barber shop of Leak & Jackson Saturday night. The Mayor hear the matter Monday night and fined each $10 and costs. They also were required to reimburse the barber shop for broken plate glass and for a half gallon of hair tonic broken in the scuffle.

Recorder’s Court, Hamlet

A colored man, J.J. Rutley, plead guilty before Recorder Austin at Hamlet Thursday morning to stealing a watch early in January form a porter at the Terminal hotel. The sentence is that he shall serve “time” on the roads for 12 months, and he was carried to the chain gang near Osborne today.
A white woman whose home is near Hamlet, named Rosa Woodard, was brought to jail here Wednesday night about midnight by policeman Miller, and is now lodged therein to await a hearing before Recorder Austin, probably Friday or Saturday.

Seduction, Abandonment Cases Before Squire Guthrie

Monroe Dawkins was arrested at McPherson’s saw-mill this morning on a warrant charging seduction, and is under $200 bond for his appearance at a preliminary hearing before Squire Guthrie March 4 at 10 a.m.

Fred Grooms will be given a hearing March 1st at 10 a.m., charged with abandonment. He lives near Osborn and was arrested Feb. 8th and lodged in jail in default of bond. His father raised the $200 bond later and he was released last Sunday to await preliminary hearing.

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Prisoners Escape

Two colored prisoners made their escape from the State penitentiary Monday morning. They are Jesse Bowden, serving a 30-year term for criminal assault near Newbern, and Albert Nixon, convicted at January term of Richmond county court for stealing $5,000 from Southern Express Co., and sent to the pen for 10 years. The two were working in a squad of other convicts and day laborers at the new site for the State School for the Blind, near the pen, in Raleigh, and about 10 o’clock the guards missed the two convicts. Investigation showed in the basement of the building their convict clothes. Some of the day laborers had evidently smuggled civilian clothes to them and they had changed in the basement and apparently as civilians had easily walked by the guards to freedom. They have not as yet been apprehended.

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