KYLE FINES WIFE
BEATERS HEAVILY.
TWO MUST SPEND YEAR EACH IN
THE WORKHOUSE.
A Pickpocket and the Assailant of a
Little Girl Are Fined $500 Each,
Also -- Lecture to Heavy-
Handed Husband.
Judge Kyle celebrated re-election yesterday by assessing four $500 fines, two of them being against wife beaters, one a pickpocket and the fourth a man who had attempted to assault a little girl. It was the judge's first day on the bench since election.
W. D. Russell, 2223 Campbell street, was fined $500 for beating his wife and putting her, with a 3-weeks-old baby in her arms, out of the house. Mrs. Russell's mother was also put out.
When Patrolman Noland was called he tried to effect a compromise. He told Mrs. Russell to go back into the house and see what Russell would do. Russell had gone to bed intoxicated, the officer said, and immediately began to curse and abuse his wife when she awakened him.
Mrs. A. Burgis of the Associated Charities said that Mrs. Russell had supported herself and baby, and husband, too, for a long time by making bed quilts, having made and sold twenty of them. When Russell insisted that he had paid the rent Mrs. Burgis said: "Not much you didn't. We paid part and your wife the rest." Russell is a big, strapping man and his wife a small woman. She was too weak and sickly to appear in court, but the officer and Mrs. Burgis did the work. His fine was $500.
The next wife beater to meet his fate was Fred Scraper of 313 East Eighteenth street. He was arrested by Patrolman McCarthy after he had raised a disturbance at his home. Mrs. Scraper and her little daughter both testified against Scraper.
"My wife irritates me," Scraper said. "The other night I went home with the earache and the toothache. Any man might slap a woman at such times."
"There is no excuse on earth great enough to cause a husband to lay even his hand upon his wife in anger. Your fine is $500," said Judge Kyle. Scraper was fined $15 on March 10 for disturbing the peace at home and given a stay conditioned on good behavior. He has been in police court many times for the same offense. He is an upholsterer's solicitor.
When Philip Packard was arraigned on a technical charge of vagrancy Sergeant James W. Hogan testified that on election night in a crowd in front of a newspaper office he had caught Packard in the act of picking a man's pocket. Bertillon records show that Packard had served a term in the penitentiary at Pontiac, Ill., and many workhouse sentences. He did not deny it. On December 21 last, under the name of Milton Steele, Packard was sent to the workhouse for attempting to pick a man's pocket in a pool hall. He was released April 1. Judge Kyle assessed $500 against Packard.
A man giving the name of J. H. McCleary, a news agent, was the last victim. He was charged with disturbing the peace. George W. Banfield, a contractor of Twenty-ninth and Flora, told how his little girl had been insulted by McCleary. Some little girls were hunting four-leaf clovers in old Troost park. When McCleary placed his hands on Mr. Banfield's daughter the girls ran and screamed. Banfield chased McCleary several blocks, caught him and turned him over to the police. McCleary was fined $500.
All four of the men fined $500 rode to the workhouse, no attempts being made to get them out on appeal bonds. The fine means one year in the workhouse.
