Temper Almost Ends In Self-Hanging, 100 Years Ago: KELEHER, JAMES PEGGY Source: Alton Evening Telegraph, September 5, 1914 James Kelehers desire to blaspheme got him near to the door of death late Friday afternoon. It was an unlucky day for Peggy, so known because he wears a peg leg, since he lost his flesh and blood leg in an accident. Peggy is hard as tacks, mean as a catamount, and vicious in the extreme. When he fights he kicks, bites, scratches and slugs. He is known as an all around bad man. He was arrested for disorderly conduct, and when put in the jail he enjoyed his confinement by pouring forth a stream of filthy vituperation and blasphemy on everybody who came in sight. Chief Lynn then locked him in a cell, but Peggy thought he would put one over on the Chief, and continue his blasphemies and filthy talk at the top of his powerful voice, even though thus confined. At the top of the cell is a little opening about six inches wide where bars once were and now nothing remains but the jagged points of the rusted out barrier. Through this hole Peggy managed to work his head. Only the remarkable narrowness of his head admitted of this trick. Turning his head sideways, he poker it through, then turned it back to normal position. His one foot and the end of his peg leg rested on the grating of the cell door. There Peggy continued to blaspheme and shout his imprecations on everybody. But he went too far. In his rage, his peg leg slipped and then his foot slipped, and down he dropped, his whole body being suspended by his neck, into which the jagged rusty points of steel were gouging with cruel effect. Peggy then began to shriek for help, and someone reported the condition of the prisoner at police headquarters. Chief Lynn, Officers Fahrig and Bund, and Red Calvey went down. They lifted Peggys form up to relieve the strain, then somebody took him by the ears and forcibly twisted his head sideways to pass it through the narrow ____, and Peggy was free again, but almost all in. He dropped to the floor of the cell, completely worn out. He was ready to go to the county jail today. The police at first thought Peggy had made his last swear, but he fooled them through the grace of a hardy constitution.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 20:27:45 +0000
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