Discharged the Principal

New York, 1895

Bartlett Hallen, principal of the public school at Valley Stream, was arraigned before Justice Smith at Far Rockaway Monday upon the complaint of the parents of W. H. Mott, a pupil, who alleged that the boy was cruelly beaten by the schoolmaster. The boy, who is nine years old, said the principal struck him with a wide strap and made welts about his body. He exhibited a lot of red marks in support of his story, Justice Smith discharged Hallen after reprimanding him.


$3,250 for an Assault

George D. Hoyt, through his counsel, H. A. Monfort, recovered a verdict of $3,250 against Alfred Walter, in the Supreme Court on Thursday. Walter is a resident of Far Rockaway. The action was the outcome of an assault on the plaintiff by the defendant and another man last June. Hoyt, as a result, sustained permanent injuries.


Gallant Rescue of Drowning Child

Little Anna Schaukenberg was playing on the factory dam at Glen Cove, on Thursday, when she suddenly tumbled off into the stream. The child immediately sank and her companions shrieked loudly for help. A bystander plunged into the stream and rescued the child.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 19, 1895, p. 1.

May Arrest the School Teacher

New York, 1895

The parents of Willie Umfricht, 12 years old, who is a pupil in the school at New Hyde Park, have been advised to cause the arrest of the principal of the school, William Dodge, on the charge of assault. Friday afternoon Principal Dodge had occasion to correct the boy, and when he called him to the platform the boy refused to obey. Then the principal went to the boy's seat and endeavored to pull him from it. Willie resisted, and during the struggle which followed he received an ugly gash in the cheek.


Fire at Harbor Hill

A spark from a Long Island railroad locomotive set fire to the underbrush in the Harbor Hill woods, east of Roslyn village, Wednesday morning. The flames quickly ran through the woods and burned throughout the day and night. A large tract of woodland was damaged.


Stealing Ivy from Graves

John Deickel, of Glendale, was arraigned before Justice Schmidt in Middle Village Friday charged with stealing ivy from graves in Lutheran cemetery. He was fined $20.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 29, 1895, p. 1.

Ask Woman Lawyer Act As Prosecutor

1916

BARNES MURDER CASE STIRS SUFFRAGISTS.

Truth and Justice Are Sought When Woman Is Tried for Killing Husband.

When State's Attorney Hoyne returns to Chicago he will find a petition from representative women in Chicago requesting that he appoint a special woman prosecutor to try Mrs. Iva Williams Barnes for the killing of her husband.

This proposition, which Mr. Hoyne and his secretary, Edward Fleming, are said to have considered even before the women took up the question of the petition, might break the chain of "not guilty" verdicts that since 1907 has freed nearly twenty Chicago women accused of murder.

The late State's Attorney Wayman said it was impossible to convict a woman of murder in Cook County. Mr. Hoyne has secured but one conviction of a woman, and that was contested. There is a feeling that a subtle sympathy extends to a woman who is being prosecuted by a man. There is also a belief that with a woman prosecutor there would be more nearly an even attempt at justice.

So keenly is the situation felt, the delegates to the National Suffrage convention at Atlantic City, N. J., discussed the question in their recent session. Mrs. Catherine Waugh McCulloch, president of the Woman's Bar Association of Chicago, said there would be no difficulty in appointing a woman to prosecute Mrs. Barnes. Mrs. McCulloch is regarded highly in the legal profession.

She Would Seek Truth.

"It would be a woman prosecutor's duty to investigate the case thoroly and make every effort to establish the truth. I am anxious to know more of the facts in the case. If I got real interested, I might volunteer my services, tho I don't do criminal work," Mrs. McCulloch is quoted as saying.

"As president of the Woman's Bar Association, I should like to see a woman prosecutor, as well as a woman in the office of the city attorney and the corporation counsel. I have no doubt that if a woman is appointed in this case she will do the work conscientiously and efficiently.

"I should like also to see the jury made up half of women and the other half men. Every fundamental law says we shall be tried by a jury of our peers. A woman who is being tried by a jury of men is not being tried by her peers. If the woman on trial is cute and handsome and of the adventuress type the jurymen are apt to be unusually lenient." While there is a possibility that a woman may be chosen to prosecute Mrs. Barnes, it should be stated that several women lawyers have volunteered to defend the confessed slayer When she is brought to trial.

"Human Gadfly" Blamed.

A human gadfly, gossiping and meddling, is blamed as the agent that inoculated Barnes with the poison of jealousy that ended with his death.

The gadfly is a woman. Her name is being withheld. She was a neighbor of the Barnes' household at 356 East Fifty-eighth street. She is bring sought as a witness by the police and agents of the coroner.

Mrs. Barnes occupies a cell in the county jail. Her moods change from bursts of the most violent anger toward these whom she blames for her predicament and of love for the memory of the man she admits she slew. The removal of her husband's body to Warners, N. Y., for burial she resented deeply. She pleaded for the right to bury the body, where she may rest beside it.

In the meantime Ellis A. Barnes, brother of the victim, employed Attorney Joseph Burres and the Turner Detective Agency to assist the prosecution of Mrs. Barnes for the murder of her husband. Detectives were sent to Mishawaka, Ind., Mrs. Barnes' former home. Inquiry will be made into her former marriage, upon which subject she has been silent until now.

A fortune, estimated from $20,000 to $40,000, left by James R. Barnes, will provide the defense fund for his slayer. Under the law the widow, Mrs. Iva Williams Barnes is entitled to at least one-third of the estate.

Wife Confesses Her Act.

A confession was wrung from Mrs. Barnes in the Hyde Park police station, where she was held before being taken to the county jail. She had been subjected to a severe cross-examination from 9 o'clock Tuesday to 2:30 o'clock the next morning, and she had but four hours' sleep.

"Yes, I shot him," she finally admitted.

Her narrative, given as she wept hysterically, sets forth the claim that her husband, who was suing her for divorce and whom she loved deeply, had scoffed at a reconciliation, had berated, cursed and then attempted to choke her.

In desperation and in fear of physical injury, she said, she drew a revolver concealed in a pocket of her coat and opened fire. They were walking in a public park. After the first shot, she told the police, she remembers only that she intended to carry the revolver away, but instead threw it near the prostrate form of her dead husband.

Attorney Guenther, for Mrs. Barnes, made a statement in which he pictured her as a hard-working, long-suffering and much-abused wife. She went to meet her husband on the night of his death, Mr. Guenther said, in the full expectation that it meant a reconciliation. She was happy, he said, because she loved her husband.

"He was twice her age," continued the attorney. "She followed his commands as a child minds a parent, never questioning but what he was always right. Barnes leaves a fortune of about $40,000. Every dollar he owned his wife helped earn for him. When they were married he didn't have a shoe-string.

"Barnes had an income of $7,500 before his death. He received $383 a month. Yet he made his wife live in a $37 flat, do all her own housework, her washing, mending, ironing, scrubbing, darning.

"He wanted to get rid of her. After her trouble with a bartender, Barnes refused to listen to the true story of her innocence and filed suit for divorce."

Tells of Parrot Episode.

Mrs. Barnes told of the "parrot" episode that had wrecked her life. After the man Shellheimer (the bartender) had caught the parrot for her, a few weeks ago, she said, she started home, for she expected her husband any moment. Shellheimer asked permission to go up into her apartment to wash his hands. Her reply, she said, was "You certainly may not," and not "you may." But he went anyhow.

It was only a short time before her husband came up the front stairs and passed on into the kitchen. The bartender was there in his shirt sleeves. He ran to the front door and escaped. Mrs. Barnes said the bartender attempted to attack her. Her husband disbelieved her story, and ceased to live with her. He told a friend that the bartender came from his wife's bedroom in his shirt sleeves.

"My husband blackened my eyes with his blows and pushed me down the stairs after the man," she said. "I grabbed his hat, and he kept calling me to give him his hat, not to break it, and in my agony even then I thought, 'See, he cares more for his hat than for me!' as he didn't seem to notice how badly I was bruised and broken. I have the scar on my shoulder yet where he struck me. The wound was three inches long.

"Then, when he started choking me, my head was thrown on one side and one of my hands was free. I reached down and pulled off my slipper and struck him with the heel on the head and made a large open wound.

"Jim was a coward, altho I loved him, and I am not going to tell of other abuses I had. I am trying to forget them now."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 4.

Jury Acquits Girl On Slaying Charge

1920 (actually happened in 1919)

16-Year-Old Defendant Plans To Resume School

Clara Bartel's Plea That She Slew Father in Family Defense Wins Freedom

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The plea of Clara Bartel, the 16-year-old girl accused of the murder of her father, Charles Bartel, that she had killed him in defending the lives of her mother and her sisters resulted in her acquittal by a jury here after only 20 minutes' deliberation.

The defendant burst into tears when the foreman of the jury announced the verdict. She swayed as if about to fall, and Mrs. Charles R. Nightingale, the probation officer who has taken care of her since her arrest, caught her in her arms. Then the crowd in the courtroom surged about her, showering her with congratulations.

Clara threw her arms about J. Hibbs Buckman, her chief attorney, and sobbed on his shoulder.

"Oh, I am so glad," she said. "Now I can help take care of mother."

Warns Against Sympathy

Judge William C. Ryan occupied thirty-five minutes in his charge to the jury.

"We have all been moved by the pathos of this case and story of the dark tragedy," said the court. "But it is your duty to render a verdict unaffected by the sympathy for this defendant of tender [years.] If she acted in [self-]defense or in defense of her mother, she would not be guilty of this offense."

"I shot my father. I had to do it to save us all."

That was the girl's first statement as she took the stand in her own defense at her trial for the murder of her father at their home near Edgewood, Bucks County, on the morning of August 22.

Three jurors wept openly as the girl told her story of a father who, she averred, abused her mother, herself and the other small children.

Bartel's aged mother, Mrs. Amelia Bartel, 81 years old, said Clara told her: "Grandma, I killed him. I had to do it to save us."

Says Father Beat Her

Under direct examination she told of finding a bundle of letters written by another woman to her father hidden in the peak of the barn. She testified that she read the letters and kept them for several days and finally showed them to her mother. For this her father beat her, she said.

After she had been given a medal for selling Liberty Bonds, she said, her father said he was "going to kill her" and expressed the hope that "they sink every d—n American." She also told of several instances when Bartel had threatened to kill her and her mother.

One night, she said, her father ordered her to go out into the barnyard and find a stick with which he drove his hogs. She told of his beating her mother the morning of the shooting and also chasing her downstairs, shouting, "I am going to kill the whole d—n lot of you and do it now!" She said he went to the place where the guns were usually kept, but they were not there. Then, she said, she ran into another room and got a shotgun and, closing her eyes, pointed it at her father, not knowing it was loaded. The gun was discharged and the shot tore thru her father's body.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 3.

Note: Two words in brackets are supplied because of breaks in the paper and so they're missing. Of course they're obvious to the context.

Mazdaznan Leader Nabbed In Chicago

1920

Sun Cult's "Little Master" on Way to Coast to Answer Charges of Children

Ottoman Zar Adusht Hanisch, the "Little Master" of the Mazdaznan cult, was arrested upon his recent arrival in Chicago and his enforced return to Los Angeles to answer serious criminal charges broke up the "feast of Gahanbar," a celebration of which by his Chicago followers was planned from midnight Christmas eve to the last minute of the year.

And he hadn't any idea, up to the moment of his arrest, of going in that direction. On the contrary, he had intended to sail for Europe in a few days, with Zurich as his objective.

But then the "Little Master" hadn't much to do with the journey. His fate was fashioned by a Los Angeles grand jury and by Lieut. Charles A. Jones of the police force of that city.

On June 14, 1918, the grand jury secretly voted ten indictments against Hanisch after hearing serious charges. Several of the complainants are children, girls as well as boys, ranging in ages from 11 to 15 years.

The Los Angeles police have been looking for Hanisch ever since. They learned that his real name is Otto Zachariah Hanisch, that he is a Russian, that his father is Richard Hanisch, a Milwaukee music teacher, and the fugitive had been lecturing under the name of Dr. Ken Wilson.

Well Known in Chicago

Chicago knows Hanisch well. He maintained his temple for years at 3016 Lake Park avenue. His disciples lived on fruits, nuts, vegetables, garlic, dewdrops, violets and sunshine, and danced alone — when they danced — breathing rhythmically and deeply, and greeting each other at every turn with "Hail to thee! Ten thousand hails!"

Hanisch got a lot of notoriety out of the "Billy" Lindsay case. "Billy's" mother, Elizabeth H. Lindsay, was a member of the cult. The boy was kept in the "terrestrial temple" and fed on white grapes and beer, it was said.

Wealthy relatives in Chicago and Pittsburgh cooperated with the Juvenile Court authorities to save the boy. Hanisch was taken into court, but the boy and his mother fled.

Seized Near Coal Bin

The Lindsay case, however, led to an investigation of the cult, and it was found the sex idea predominated. Hanisch sent an alleged obscene book by express to another State, and on March 4, 1912, a raid was made on the temple and he was arrested. He was found, in all his silken glory, wedged into a niche near the coal bin in the basement.

He was convicted of sending obscene literature in interstate commerce, fined $2,500 and sent to the bridewell for six months. The literature in question was his book of "Inner Studies," which sold for anywhere from $10 to $50, according to the wealth of him who bought it.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 1.

Lady Speaks to Him Only with Her Eyes

Indiana, 1916

But Interpreter Spins a Long Story from the Conversation.

Mrs. Joe Pogzelaski, of Hayden street, was called to the stand in the city court, Monday, to testify as to the conduct of her husband, who was drunk Sunday and creating a disturbance at home. Neither Joe nor Mrs. Joe could speak English and an interpreter was called.

Mr. Beklixyzski volunteered the use of both his English and Polish vocabularies.

"Ask him if he is guilty," said Judge H. Waveland Kerr to the interpreter.

"He says he will never do it again," volunteered the interpreter before the prisoner had a chance to say a word.

After some sparring between the court and the interpreter Judge Kerr asked for Mrs. Joe. She was sworn and sat gazing into the face of the interpreter. "Ask her if her husband struck her over the head with a beer bottle," instructed the court.

"She say they been married twenty-two year and never had no trouble and she want him to come home and he won't do it any more" — and a whole lot more, said the interpreter.

Mrs. Joe had said not a word. If she spoke it was with her eyes and she might have wig-wagged the message to the court through the interpreter, but there was reasonable doubt even of that. For five minutes Judge Kerr sought to find out whether Mr. Joe had assaulted Mrs. Joe. It was futile. The woman said nothing, whereas, the interpreter discharged conversation like a whole battery of phonographs.

Then Mr. Joe, Mrs. Joe and the interpreter got their heads together for a three-cornered talk-test, the upshot of which was a translation by the interpreter that Mr. Joe wanted very much to go home. Judge Kerr gave up in despair and continued the case until Tuesday, sending Mr. Joe to jail. When the police arrived at the Hayden street residence Sunday they found no end of beer, a bottle of whisky and broken bottles all over the house and in the street. Mrs. Joe had taken refuge across the street.

—The Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, April 26, 1916, p. 4.