DEATH RATHER THAN PRISON.
Negress Attempts Suicide When Jury
Finds Her Guilty.
Just after Sallie Tyler, a young negress, had been brought back to the county jail after her trial and sentenced to four years in the penitentiary in Judge E. E. Porterfield's division of criminal court for stealing a watch from D. L. Goosey, she drank half a can of concentrated lye. She was taken to the emergency hospital at police headquarters and treated by Dr. J. Park Neal, who said last night that she would recover.
The girl had threatened suicide whle the jury was out. She told Deputy Marshal M. B. Olson, who was assigned to conduct her from the jail to the court room and bring her back, that she would kill herself if the jury sentenced her to the penitentiary.
She had access to the lye because she had been a trusty in the women's portion of the jail and had the superintending of the other women prisoners who do the scrubbing about the jail. She cut a hole in the top of the box of lye with a scissors, poured half of the contents into a tin cup, and drank it with water. The other women prisoners thought she was taking a drink of water until after she fell on the floor.
