“Last Saturday we published an article reflecting on the management of the County Infirmary. To it has been made more than one reply. The writer has been slandered by the Superintendent, the Director has seen fit to charge some of its truths with being false, while the man who has the farm under his control, concealing himself behind one of the stone pillars of the post office front with a club, prepared for the purpose, at an early hour attempts, with all cowardly, brutal and studied instincts of the assassin, to take the life of the man who dares to call attention to his actions.”
“To make our reader familiar with the actions of this man Craig, we will say that last Monday morning, at half-past seven, as we came out of the post office, our right arm encumbered with papers, overcoat and gloves on, we were confronted by a man with a newly made club, about three feet in length. Who he was, we had no idea, neither did we expect an attack from him. He said, ‘I s’pose you’re John the Baptist.’ Looking the fellow in the eye, we said, not comprehending his hidden meaning, ‘Guess so.’ Without another word, he aimed a blow at our head, which was caught on the uplifted left arm. Other blows, three in number, were given, and to each lick he would not stop to reason the case, or tell who he was. Running into the post office, we called on Mr. John McDowell, who was in the office, to interfere until such time as the brute instincts of the would-be assassin could be curbed by the reasoning of a bystander. The poor, cowardly scoundrel, knew no logic but the knock-down argument of the club, and no law but a blow of the bludgeon.”
“A man, weighing one hundred and eighty pounds, suffers Saturday and Sunday to pass by, and, nursing his wounded wrath until Monday morning, tracks his victim into a room, and hiding behind the protection of the stone column, he make his cowardly and villainous assault. It looks, from his action, as if every line published concerning him was true, and that he wanted to silence the pen by palsying the arm that dared to guide it.”
“We leave it to the people, if a man who thus defies law in open day, is a man fit to be trusted with any department of the county which is sustained by the taxpayers. Assassins do not make good farmers, and law-breakers are not always men of principle. Mr. Craig, for this is the name of the cowards, thought every John the Baptist should have his Herod. He forgot that the laws of Ohio in 1874 are differed from the laws of 32, in the days of the tetrarch Herod. Herod was sorry that his rash promise would make him a murderer; this modern Herod has no grief. The overgrown bully thought he could strike a man down on the street at an early hour, and be gone, and nobody would be the wiser. But he found there was ‘a God in Israel,’ so to speak, to punish him, and in a short time after was brought before Esquire Nickells, plead guilty to his cowardice, and received a well-merited rebuke from the Court and was fined twenty-five dollars for his action.”
“The blows we received were very painful during that day and night, the arm being bruised and skinned with great force of the strong arm that wielded the club, and even at this writing we cannot rest the arm on anything, the weight of the arm causing great pain. Only the thick sleeves of the overcoat prevented it from being broken, and the arm protecting the head from the murderous attack.”
“After the trial, this contemptible fellow had the effrontery to come over to where we stood, club in hand, and tell us he would be compelled to sue for libel. We told him if he had done that at first, instead of his cowardly action of a few minutes before, it would have looked better, and that we hoped he would enter his libel suit in his own name, and not at the expense of the taxpayers. Let him bring his libel suit, the threat will not deter us from entering other suits against him, as we intend to. Men who take the law in their own hands must be taught better, and it is our duty to see that he is so taught. Our readers can assure themselves that we will attend to this.”1
