BAPTIZED THEM IN A BATH TUB.
Five Negroes in County Jail Joined
Church Yesterday.
Five negroes, confined in the county jail awaiting trail on charges of burglary of larceny or both, confessed to conversion and yesterday forenoon were baptized in running cold water inside the jail. Rev. Joseph W. Fitts, Baptist, and Rev. A. B. Ross, of the United Christian Workers, who performed the ceremony, had to figure a bit to get cold and running water in the jail to perform the rite, but finally hit upon the plan of filling a bathtub full of water, pulling out the bung and turning on the tap. The plan worked like a charm and everyone of the five chattered "Glory!" when he came up, just as if he had been immersed in the Blue river or some other real stream
Fitts, pastor of the Macedonian Baptist church of Independence, serving a year's sentence for criminal assault upon a 14-year-old girl, daughter of a member of his flock, claims the credit for the conversion of the five other prisoners, but the jailers are prone to shift a bit of the glory to the workers whom the wife of Judge W. H. Wallace has on two occasions brought to the jail to sing and pray with the prisoners. The Rev. Mr. Ross and some twelve assistants have been holding services regularly on Sundays in the jail for some months.
The prisoners, who were immersed in the tub of flowing cold water are: Frank Johnson, Oscar Jensen, Edward Dixon, Jeff Call and Boyd Brown. Johnson is the best known negro of the five and has confessed to robbing nearly a score of residence in the Northeast portion of the city.
Over twenty members of the United Worker's band, men and women, accompanied Ross to the jail and watched their leader and Fitts perform the rite.
