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Show WESTERN WHISPERS. The city authorities of Salt Lake are entertaining a proposition to light that city by electricity. The method proposed is to construct a high tower at a central point, and place at its top an electric light of sufficient power to light a radius of two miles. It is proposed to make the light at a distance of two miles from the tower as strong as it now is from an ordinary street lamp at a distance of 100 feet, and to do this at no greater expense than is now involved in lighting by gas. A short time since the Provo Enquirer gave an account of the arrest of a young fellow named Shepherd on a charge of committing a rape upon a young lady at Spanish Fork. At the trial the victim testified as follows: She had consented to accompany young Shepherd to a dance to be held at the house of John Higgins, west of Spanish Fork City some two or three miles. She rode on the same horse with him - he in front - and when in Ted Creek's Field, a lonely place and the night exceedingly dark, he jumped off the horse, pulled her down with him, and in spite of her struggles and threats threw her on a shock of grain and consummated his fiendish purpose. She showed portions of her dress which she says had been torn in the struggle. Fearing punishment from her father who had forbid her going with Shepherd to the dance, she concluded not to return home until he had retired for the night and fearing in consequence of the darkness of the night that she would lose her way if she left Shepherd then, she consented to go with the ravisher to the dance. When there, as she admitted, she danced with Shepherd once. There were no married people there to whom she could relate her troubles, and she permitted herself to be accompanied home by Shepherd, but in the company of others. Still being afraid of punishment, she did not mention the circumstances of the outrage to her father until the third day. Her father soon communicated the facts of the case to Sheriff Turner and County prosecuting Attorney George M. Brown. There not being sufficient evidence, in the judgment of the magistrate, to hold him on a charge of rape, Shepherd was discharged. He acknowledged having had intercourse with her, but claimed that it was with her consent. It is a pity that the law offers any protection to the lives of such villains. |