Terrible Outrage

LEA

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 4/30/2011 at 06:47:41

Jackson Sentinel, Maquoketa, Iowa, June 23, 1870

TERRIBLE OUTRAGE-

Villainy and crime seems to be fearfully on the increase all over the country. We can scarcely look over a paper without finding an account of a crime committed. There seems to be a growing indisposition to work-a desire to live well by praying on the honest fruits of others. We have a few of this class in our midst, fortunately very few. Public sentiment refuses to countenance such men, and a loafer and bummer is now looked upon as a criminal, and in truth he is little better, for there is but one short step between loaferism and crime.

For the past week or ten days a chap by the name of F. Lea, who has been perambulating our streets and whose only occupation seemed to have been that of living at the expense of those whom he dared to attack. Last night he made an assault upon a young lady who was walking up Main Street. He was seized by the lady’s escort and after a severe struggle was strangled to death. We presume the verdict of the coroner’s jury will be “justifiable homicide.” The excitement is not so intense as it was. No arrests have yet been made.