THE MIDNIGHT ASSAULT.
Thus matters went on until the night of July 7th, 1894, when Mr. Smith
drove out from his home and returned somewhat late. After caring for
his team he went into the station. It was afterwards told that some
young men had noticed a stranger at the depot that night, who had
appeared to be waiting for a train but had not gone away on any. After
the crowd at the station had dispersed, and the inmates of the
building had retired, as there was little night work to be done, Mr.
Smith went into his home in the station, where his brother's family
were then living with him, and having obtained a pillow for his head
went back to the waiting-room, where he lay down upon a settee and
dropped asleep.
An article published in the Montreal _Daily Witness_ soon after this
so well describes some of the circumstances which cluster round the
events of that night at Sutton Junction that we give some parts of it
here. It says:
"The liquor selling ruffians will descend to any warfare however
dastardly and mean when forced by law to a standstill. There is
something in the sad business that degrades every one in it. This
time it is liquor sellers in Brome County that are indicted. Mr.
W. W. Smith, President of the Brome County Branch of the Dominion
Alliance, is also the station agent at Sutton Junction for the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company. As president of the Alliance he
represents the temperance element of course, and that is the
element determined to carry out the law against liquor selling.
Mr. Smith represents them in this. In doing so he is certain to
make enemies. He has been assiduous in his duty, and has been
threatened several times. These threats did not keep him from
actively participating in efforts to secure the conviction
recently of several lawbreaking liquor sellers in Brome, some of
whom were convicted, and have had sentence suspended over them
pending their good behavior. On Saturday night, Mr. Smith took
the night operator's place, arranging that the latter should take
his place on Sunday. After securing everything for the night, Mr.
Smith lay down on the sofa, never dreaming that any evil was to
come to him."
Instead of copying the account of the assault which follows the above,
we will describe the facts as nearly as possible as they have been
related by the victim himself.
[Illustration: Station at Sutton Junction, Place of the midnight assault.]
It was between one and two o'clock on Sunday morning, July 8th, when
Mr. Smith was attacked by the cowardly miscreant who has thus made
himself notorious. We say "cowardly," because when a large, strong man
who carries arms and is a professional fighter, as he appears to have
been, attacks a man who is weaponless and not more than two-thirds his
size by giving him a stunning blow upon the head while he is asleep,
there is clearly no evidence of heroism on the part of the man who
makes the assault. Yet this was what Mr. Smith's brave assailant did!
After receiving the first blow, Mr. Smith felt a strange sensation as
though he were taking a long, happy journey, and he thinks he was
aroused by his assailant attempting to drag him from the settee. As a
train was going by before daylight, it is the opinion of many that his
intention may have been to leave his victim stunned upon the railway
track, that the locomotive might complete the frightful work which he
had begun. At least, he doubtless intended by some means to guard
himself from suspicion and leave Mr. Smith entirely unable ever to
identify him. When he saw that the object of his brutal attack was
arousing he struck him a second time, but this blow not having the
effect of the former one, Mr. Smith, who was now fully conscious,
although he could not see clearly, grappled desperately with his foe.
He saw a long weapon of some sort waving fiercely above his head, and
now and then received a blow from it, while his assailant was
constantly dragging him nearer the door, and he struggling to remain
in the room fearing the villain might have associates outside. Mr.
Smith was all the time shouting "murder," as loudly as possible, but,
his mouth being filled with blood, he was unable to make himself
clearly heard, and his calls brought no assistance. At length, being
somewhat weakened by the blows he had received, he was dragged outside
in spite of his efforts to remain within, but still no one came to the
help of either himself or his antagonist. The two men, still
struggling desperately, passed on from the upper to the lower platform
without the station, and thence to the railway track below, and
finally back to the lower platform. Then Mr. Smith got possession of
the weapon which his assailant had been wielding, and the last hope of
his enemy seemed to vanish with the loss of that, for, freeing himself
from the grasp of the man whom he had thought a few minutes before was
entirely in his power, he disappeared in the darkness, and fled up the
track in such haste that he did not even stop for his hat, which was
found by some one upon the platform next morning. The weapon which he
left in Mr. Smith's possession proved to be a large piece of lead pipe
well battered and bruised, near one end of which was attached a short
piece of rope, apparently intended to be slipped around the wrist of
the user so that the weapon might be concealed up his sleeve.
Mr. Smith, having seen his enemy retreat, hastened to the part of the
house where his brother's family were sleeping, and thence to the
other part where a Mr. Ames and family lived, and aroused the inmates
of both apartments, who were very much surprised and alarmed at
thought of the frightful scene which had been enacted so close to the
apartments where they were calmly sleeping. However, there was one
brave man, a train hand, who was sleeping above the scene of the
assault, who declared that he had heard the blows when given, but did
not go down to learn the cause as he "did not want to mix up in it,"
and was afraid he might get hurt. There are far too many people who
display the same disposition when others within their reach are in
danger or in need of assistance. When the people of the house were
awakened it seemed already too late to capture the retreating
criminal, but Mr. Smith's injuries were attended to, and a message
sent at once by telephone to Sutton for a physician. The bruises
proved to be very severe, and it seems to be a modern miracle that
life itself was spared.
The article from the _Witness_, part of which we quoted above, after
describing the assault, says:
"A good deal of indignation is felt by the law-abiding people not
only of Sutton Flats, but of the county, and it is hoped that
every effort will be made to discover the perpetrator. The
woollen cap and slung-shot should give a clever detective a good
clue to work upon. Some time ago, at the public meeting called to
discuss the liquor question, Mr. Dyer, M. P. for the county, said
that the authorities had been twitted by the liquor men for not
enforcing the Scott Act. That reproach might have been justified
in a measure at least, as there was some doubt as to the opinion
of the people in its favor. But in 1893 the liquor men had
appealed--and perhaps it was well they did so--to the county, to
decide whether that law should be enforced or not. The county had
declared against the liquor men. Now the time had come when this
majority should stand at the back of the officials, and all
should endeavor to enforce the law. Mr. Dyer's remarks at the
time were taken to represent the desire of the law-abiding people
of Brome County. In carrying out this idea, Mr. Smith, they
contend, was simply doing his duty, and it is expected that in
doing it he had the majority of the people of the county with
him."
This brutal assault, made upon a law-abiding citizen by one whom he
had never injured in any way is a fair sample of the fruits of
intemperance wherever found. There are those who have seemed loath to
believe that Mr. Smith's strong temperance convictions and his
activity in carrying them out were the real causes which led to the
bitter hatred that inspired this fiendish act. They seem to think it
impossible that "respectable (?)" citizens of a temperance county
should attempt in such a reckless, lawless way to prevent opposition
to their traffic in strong drink. But what is there incredible in
this? When we consider that traffic in strong drink means a trade in
the souls of men, women and children, and in innocence, virtue and
hope; when we remember that the bartender daily takes from his
customers the price of food, clothes, health, respectability and all
that he has of real value in the world, and gives him in return
nothing but liquid ruin; when we know that the rumseller's business is
a sort of wholesale murder continually, inasmuch as by it millions of
lost souls are sent into eternity annually; in view of all these
facts, why should we be surprised when the liquor sellers of a
community plan together to rid themselves of one who has vigorously
opposed their dangerous work? It is only another form of the same
business.
The disclosures following the assault upon Mr. Smith convinced many
people of the evils of the liquor traffic, and some who had favored
and pitied the hotel keepers when they had been fined for lawbreaking
now turned against them, feeling that they could no longer uphold
their deeds. Meantime, some of the hotel keepers of the vicinity gave
evidence of their guilt by disappearing from the locality very soon
after the assault took place.
The investigation of the affair was placed in the hands of S. H.
Carpenter, Superintendent of the Canadian Secret Service, and
detectives were at once set at work upon the case. Either Mr.
Carpenter or one of the men under his direction was constantly in the
vicinity, seeking to obtain clues by which to determine the guilty
party. One man, who lived near the mountain pass between Sutton and
Glen Sutton, declared that, early on the morning of July 8th, he had
seen two men pass his house driving very rapidly and going in the
direction of the latter village, one of the men having no hat, but
wearing a cloth around his head. Of course this story had an air of
significance inasmuch as the assailant of the previous night had left
his hat at Sutton Junction, but it did not prove to be of much
importance. It was soon settled in the minds of many that the
stranger whom we have mentioned as having been frequenting the hotels
at Sutton and Abercorn had been the wielder of the lead pipe on July
8th, but his name and whereabouts were not to be obtained, as he had
been sailing under false colors during his stay in the country, and
those who were initiated into the secrets of the case, of course, kept
silence.
At length, Mr. Smith received a letter from a woman in Vermont, who
had formerly been employed at one of the hotels in the vicinity of the
assault, and soon after he met this same woman at Sutton, and her
evidence was a great aid towards locating the assailant. She knew
nothing about the pretended Boston horse-buyer, who had apparently
forgotten the object of his northward journey and disappeared without
having purchased any of the Canadian steeds, but she remembered an
American having once stopped for a time at the hotel where she was
then working, and from the description given it seemed that he might
be the same man. The one whom she described she said came from
Marlboro, Mass., and thither a man was soon despatched in search. It
proved that the man to whom she had directed Mr. Smith was not the one
in question, but in searching for him the real perpetrator of the
crime was found, as he chanced to be also a resident of Marlboro,
Mass. Having located his man, the gentleman in search returned home,
leaving in Marlboro a Canadian detective who should keep watch of the
man until Mr. Carpenter went there. However, when Mr. Carpenter, who
was accompanied by Mr. Smith, reached the place, the man whom they
sought had already been lost track of by the detective, but after a
few days Mr. Smith saw him in company with several others, and at once
identified him as being the man whom he had seen in the vicinity of
Sutton Junction previous to the assault, and also as having the form
and gait which he had noticed his assailant to have when he had
watched him fleeing from the scene of his cowardly attack. Soon this
man was captured at Hudson, Mass., a place about five miles distant
from Marlboro. He was arrested by Chief of Police Skully of Hudson and
Policeman Hater of Worcester, and taken to Fitchburg. The name of this
young man who had apparently come very near being a murderer was
Walter W. Kelly, and he had been a bartender in Marlboro, which
probably made him feel more sympathy for his Canadian brethren when
their liberty to sell intoxicants was interfered with.
While at Fitchburg, Kelly was advised to yield himself up and go
freely to Canada with Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Smith, because, he was
told, they were determined to have him at any cost, and, if he made
them the trouble and expense of extraditing him, he would only be
obliged to lie in jail a much longer time before his trial could take
place, whereas the sentence of punishment would doubtless be just as
severe in the one case as in the other.
Acting in the spirit of this advice he gave himself up into the hands
of Detective Carpenter and went with him to Montreal, where he
acknowledged his guilt, and also told that he had been hired to do the
deed by John Howarth, a young man who lived with the hotel keeper at
Abercorn, and that James Wilson, one of the hotel keepers at Sutton,
had driven the team which carried him to and from the Junction on the
night of the assault.
Mr. Smith, who had also accompanied Mr. Carpenter to Montreal, at once
returned home, and, having notified a number of his friends and
procured a constable from Knowlton, Que., went in company with several
others from Sutton to Abercorn, on Saturday night, August 25th, for
the purpose of arresting Howarth. On a Saturday night also, just seven
weeks previous, a smaller company of men had gone from Sutton in the
opposite direction, not to arrest a guilty man, but to assault an
innocent man, not in the cause of right and justice, but of wrong and
injustice. But now it seemed that the tide had turned!
The little company of "friends of temperance" surrounded the Abercorn
hotel, and the constable, going to the door, called loudly to Mr.
Jenne, the proprietor, who was doubtless in the land of dreams. Mr.
Jenne, who appeared to be somewhat suspicious, was loath to open his
house at that unseemly hour, and demanded his visitor's name; but the
constable, giving a fictitious name, enquired for John Howarth, and
when that individual made his appearance, he was at once arrested in
the name of the Queen. Seeing the people outside, neither he nor Mr.
Jenne dared resist, and, being assured by the latter that he would
soon have him free again, Howarth accompanied the constable to the
jail at Sweetsburg, feeling, doubtless, much less pleased with his
future prospects than he had felt when planning by violence and
bloodshed to frighten the temperance people into submission or
silence, and leave himself and his congenial associates free to drink
and sell as much liquor as they chose. Thus Satan may sometimes appear
to his servants as a very good master when they serve him faithfully,
and accomplish his designs, but when they fail to carry out some of
his cherished plans and find themselves in danger and trouble, as a
result of their zeal in his service, then he proves a very poor sort
of comforter. Better far to serve a Master who will not forsake His
followers in time of need!
A few days later an attempt was made to arrest James Wilson, who had
left the hotel at Sutton, and was thought to be staying at Glen
Sutton, his former home. This expedition is so fully described by an
article in the Montreal _Daily Star_ that we quote from it here. The
two local guides mentioned in this report were W. W. Smith and his
brother, H. S. Smith. The account, dated August 31st, is as follows:
"A mysterious midnight expedition left Richford Station, Vermont,
a little after twelve this morning, and disappeared in the gloomy
shadow of Mount Sutton. The party was composed of Superintendent
Silas H. Carpenter of the Canadian Secret Service, a _Star_
reporter and two local guides. The object of the expedition was a
search for James Wilson and M. L. Jenne, hotel keepers of Sutton
and Abercorn, for whose arrests Carpenter held warrants. These
men are accused of being the conspirators who organized, aided
and abetted the arrangements for the attempted and nearly
successful murder of W. W. Smith, the President of the Brome
County Temperance Alliance, who for some time has been like a
thorn in the side of the Brome County hotel keepers, because, by
insisting upon the enforcement of the law, to wit, the Scott Act,
he spoiled their profitable liquor trade. The excellent means of
communication in the counties of Missisquoi and Brome, by
telephone and otherwise, necessitated the greatest care in
keeping the purpose of the trip secret, especially because the
entire county seems to be situated too dangerously near the
American border line for officers of the law to take any chances,
and, accordingly, the ground had to be reached from Sweetsburg in
a round-about way. It was with grave apprehension that the
officers of the court and the citizens of that town let our small
party depart on what to them appeared a most dangerous errand; it
seemed perfect folly to them that Detective Carpenter alone, with
only a _Star_ reporter, should thus attempt to 'beard the lions
in their dens'--and on a very dark night, too!
"Why, they said, when the constable from Knowlton went to arrest
Howarth, another of the alleged conspirators who lives in the
same vicinity, last week, he surrounded the house with a cordon
of twenty men. They said, besides, the Wilsons were known as a
fighting family, who would never allow a member to be arrested
easily. As to Jenne, no two men would be able to prevent him from
slipping out of the house and escaping. As it turned out, Mr.
Carpenter had, in a measure, a greater success than even he
anticipated. Since the arrest of the man Kelly, who was hired to
do and perpetrated the act of assault, those who were interested
in the plan of getting rid of Mr. Smith have evinced a really
remarkable preference for the air across the line, and a score of
residents of this vicinity more or less connected with Brome
liquor interests have emigrated to the neighboring towns of the
United States, hoping that they may not be extradited. Mr.
Carpenter's little excursion cost a good many people beside
himself their night's rest. The first house where Wilson was
supposed to be was searched at about three this morning, and
three other houses were subjected to a similar process within the
next two hours. At the last place Wilson's parents, wife and sick
child were found; but they pleaded utter ignorance of the head of
the family's whereabouts. There is little doubt but that he is in
hiding in the States. Jenne's hotel, at Abercorn, was visited
about six, and he, too, was in the States. But Mr. Carpenter gave
Jenne's son such convincing proofs that his father would be
extradited anyhow, and that his staying away would only be
considered an acknowledgment of guilt, that the old man was sent
for and decided to come to Canada without trouble. It is known
that the confession of Kelly, now under arrest, implicates,
directly and indirectly, a dozen or so of well-known people
around here. There is a promising prospect for penitentiary terms
for several of them."
[Illustration: The General Manager of the General Manager--Grip.]
In the above account is given evidence of both the guilt and cowardice
of these hotel keepers. When men concoct plans of evil which they
dare not execute in person, and then hire a foreigner to carry them
out, it is not strange if they prove too cowardly to face justice when
their part in the crime has been made known. It is little wonder if
they seek a foreign clime, but more strange that they do not hide for
shame after their fear of punishment is lessened. Is it because they
find too many sympathizers at home?
Let those who doubt that this crime was undertaken because of the
temperance principles of its victim search the records of other
localities for parallel cases. Many earnest men and women have
suffered for the same cause. Satan never yields a foot of ground
anywhere without fighting vigorously to retain it, and no important
reform was ever inaugurated but it met with strong opposition from the
first.
The more important a reform also, that is to say, the more it is
opposed to the rule of the powers of darkness, the more bitter the
persecution is likely to be which meets it at every step. Witness the
fierce opposition to the spread of Christianity in the early centuries
and the persecution which has almost always followed its introduction
into a new, neglected region. The temperance reform has been no
exception in this respect, and as a leading temperance worker has
said: "The martyr-roll of temperance is just as sacred as that of any
other reform that was ever inaugurated."
This same worker, Mr. J. C. Nichols, gives a sketch in this connection
which may be of interest to the readers of this narrative. It is of a
young man in New Orleans--a young man pure and earnest, such as the
world everywhere has need of. He was a zealous temperance worker, and
had met with considerable success in this work, which lay so near his
heart. One dark night, alone and unarmed, he was crossing a bridge
beyond which lay a clump of bushes. When he reached these bushes he
was confronted by six men with weapons who lay in ambush waiting for
him. They sprang out and shot him, and, not content with that, bruised
and battered his features beyond recognition. And then his noble
mother wrote to Miss Willard, President of the World's W. C. T. U.,
that she had yet two boys left, and she had rather they would die as
he had, fighting for the right, than that either of them should turn
aside to the right hand or the left.
These six men, attacking one defenceless temperance man, displayed the
same spirit of cowardice as their northern brethren show when they
hire a stranger to do the work for them. They had greater success
attending their efforts, but probably there was no more hatred or
revenge in their hearts than was in the hearts of the Brome County
liquor sellers when they sent to Massachusetts for a prize fighter to
come north to injure and perhaps kill a Christian temperance worker.
Through the providence of God, the plans of these men do not always
succeed, and when they do the real victory is often for God and the
right rather than for them, because no right-thinking man or woman can
but oppose them and their business when they see such fruits of the
traffic. North or south, the nature and effects of intemperance are
ever the same.