OCR Text |
Show ATTEMPTED RAPE. On a certain evening last week, the perpetration of a dastardly and heinous crime was prevented by the providential arrival on the scene of a gentleman, through whom the particulars became known to certain individuals from whom we have obtained our information. At a late hour on the evening referred to, while the moon was shining brightly, a gentleman walking down Second Street, turned the corner of the Presbyterian church, and as he did so saw near the middle of the street a little south of the church, a group apparently engaged in a struggle. One of the group was a young woman, deaf and dumb, who lives in the Third ward, and she was making the only vocal noise of which she is capable, a sort of bellow, indicative of great alarm. She was struggling with three young men, two of whom fled at the approach of the gentleman. The third, however, retained his hold on the girl until the gentleman approached quite near when he too retreated, and joined his companions in a neighboring corral. There they made a defiant halt, and as the gentleman approached them, one of them called out "G-d d--n ye, we're the ones, and if you want anything of us, come and git it!" The gentleman told them that they ought to be ashamed to meddle with a poor deaf and dumb girl like that, and that if he were a policeman he would certainly arrest them. One of them replied, "G-d d-n ye, we didn't meddle with you!" and continued by using threats towards the gentleman. A lady living near the scene heard the girl's peculiar bellow, which is described as a horrible sound, when she utters it in alarm. The gentleman recognized at least one of the three miscreants, whose purpose is only too obvious. The girl made signs to him that she desired his protection, and he accompanied her part of the way to her home. Two different persons, acquainted with the facts of this affair, have requested us not to publish their names as our informants, one of them declaring that the three villains would be very likely to waylay him if they knew he had informed on them. It certainly suggests peculiar reflections when an attempted rape, under the peculiarly aggravating circumstances of the present affair, can be made, and the witnesses to it remain in fear for their personal safety if they should inform on the guilty parties. It would seem as if they thought the law was powerless to protect them, and put the guilty ones where they could not wreak their vengeance on the witnesses against them. |