A Pair of Hobos – Interfering with Switchman, Found Guilty

Ohio, 1894

A Pair of Hobos

On Trial for Interfering with a Switchman in the Lake Shore Yards

Two men named James Johnson and Thomas McLaughlin were on trial in the Common Pleas court nearly the whole of Thursday on an indictment charging them with interfering with a switchman in the manipulation of switches and signals.

Johnson is a middle aged man who hails from Buffalo and says he is employed in erecting telegraph poles. He also claims to be something of a pugilist, and his looks support his claim. McLaughlin is a younger fellow of 21, who says he is a waiter on board lake steamers, is an innocent looking fellow whose own statements that he has been arrested for vagrancy and drunkenness would astonish any ordinary person not accustomed to criminal court scenes.

The evidence showed that on the night of September 13 a young man named Kimball, who is employed as night switchman in the Lake Shore yards, went to turn the switches and also the target signals which are used to let the trains of the Lake Erie & Western Railroad company enter the Lake Shore depot, when he was confronted by the prisoners who told him they were running things. There were three other hobos in company with the accused. The switchman knocked down one of the men with his lamp and brushed the other aside, thus being enabled to make the switches. There was some delay, however, and a west bound train was detained temporarily. The men were arrested late at night, one while asleep on the target platform and the other while in a drunken sleep in a lot adjoining the railroad right of way.

Mr. W. W. Bowen assisted Prosecutor Mackey for the State and Judge Colver defended the accused. The case went to the jury at 5:30 and an hour later a verdict of guilty was returned.

—The Sandusky Register, Sandusky, Ohio, Dec. 21, 1894, p. 5.