Judge Alford Prompt.

“I am in possession of a communication from the jail, which, if a part only is true, needs investigation. I have so many cases for trial I cannot investigate it now, but I ask the board to hear evidence and report your finding to me, or report the facts. I do not know that there is any truth in it, but we can not all just treat it with contempt unless we find that the complaints are untrue, and I now ask this board to aid me in the matter.”

County Commissioner John McGregor immediately went to the jail and decided that the complaint of the prisoners was unfounded, except that the sanitary condition of the cells was not as good as might be.

Tip as to Coming Trouble

Sheriff Sourbler received private information last Monday that all was not well in the United States ward, where the most intelligent and desperate prisoners in the jail are confined. He found that some of the cleverest men in the gang had formed what is known as a “kangaroo court,” where prisoners who did not side with them in their schemes, were tried, convicted and disciplined.

Albert De Vall, charged with rape, one of the most dangerous members of this self-constituted court, made a daring attempt to escape from the jail last week, and was successful in dashing to the basement before he was caught and overpowered. For this he was placed in the dungeon.

“Jail Plot Exposed,” Indianapolis Sun (Indianapolis, Indiana), 20 September 1906, p. 1, col. 1; digital image, Newspaper Archive (http://www.newspaperarchive.com : accessed 7 April 2014).