Court Dismisses Gambling Charge

By Camden NJ History
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Camden Post-Telegram, April 9, 1912 — Court Dismisses Gambling Charge
Camden Post-Telegram, April 9, 1912
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COURT DISMISSES GAMBLING CHARGE Eli Johnson and Those Caught in Raid Are Freed by Recorder. THIRTY-ONE TAKEN IN TWO DESCENTS It was late yesterday afternoon when the hearings in the raids in two alleged disorderly houses in South Camden, made early on Sunday morning by Captain Stanley, Sergeant Nowrey and details of police, were concluded in Police Court. In the case of Eli Johnson, colored, charged with conducting a gambling house at 307 Spruce street, Recorder Stackhouse found him not guilty and discharged the defendant and the persons captured in the raid. Lawyer William P. Walsh represented Johnson. Daniel Bussey, a negro, was charged with being the principal at 829 Locust street, but the testimony showed that he was but one of a colored social and beneficial club which held forth at that place. Recorder Stackhouse therefore fined Bussey and the fourteen others caught in the raid $3 each. All paid. An amusing attempt of a negro to escape lent a touch of merriment to the descent on the Locust street house. Hearing the pattering of shoe leather on the cellar steps, Detective Painter got a lamp and descended into the dungeon-like darkness and in a far corner of the cellar, looking as if he were trying to squeeze himself through a crack in the angle of the wall, was found hiding a terrified young negro. "Come out of that mister corner man," said Painter shading the lamp with his hand. "What's you doing in there" "I didn't run out the back way," explained the prisoner, "because I was scared of de dawg." One of the negroes caught in the raid at 829 Locust street is Walter Edgerton, now aged 52 years, a former famous prize fighter known as the "Kentucky Rosebud," who has been living in South Camden for some time. A couple of years ago Edgerton figured in a sensational case in the Philadelphia courts in his desperate but futile efforts to retain possession of a white baby whom he had adopted and on whom he lavished the finest clothing and luxuries which money could buy. No liquor was found at either of the places raided. In fact it was not alleged that they were speak-easies but gambling houses. No gaming paraphernalia was found at 307 Spruce street. At 829 Locust street, the police copped a crap table and four big bloodhued bones. Captain Stanley resurrected the cubes from the depths of a coal basket in the second-story front room where they had been shoved and shuffled up when the police were heard approaching.

Eli Johnson and Those Caught in Raid Are Freed by Recorder

Thirty-One Taken in Two Descents

It was late yesterday afternoon when the hearings in the raids in two alleged disorderly houses in South Camden, made early on Sunday morning by Captain Stanley, Sergeant Nowrey and details of police, were concluded in Police Court.

In the case of Eli Johnson, colored, charged with conducting a gambling house at 307 Spruce street, Recorder Stackhouse found him not guilty and discharged the defendant and the persons captured in the raid. Lawyer William P. Walsh represented Johnson.

Daniel Bussey, a negro, was charged with being the principal at 829 Locust street, but the testimony showed that he was but one of a colored social and beneficial club which held forth at that place.

Recorder Stackhouse therefore fined Bussey and the fourteen others caught in the raid $3 each. All paid.

An amusing attempt of a negro to escape lent a touch of merriment to the descent on the Locust street house. Hearing the pattering of shoe leather on the cellar steps, Detective Painter got a lamp and descended into the dungeon-like darkness and in a far corner of the cellar, looking as if he were trying to squeeze himself through a crack in the angle of the wall, was found hiding a terrified young negro.

“Come out of that mister corner man,” said Painter shading the lamp with his hand. “What’s you doing in there”

“I didn’t run out the back way,” explained the prisoner, “because I was scared of de dawg.”

One of the negroes caught in the raid at 829 Locust street is Walter Edgerton, now aged 52 years, a former famous prize fighter known as the “Kentucky Rosebud,” who has been living in South Camden for some time. A couple of years ago Edgerton figured in a sensational case in the Philadelphia courts in his desperate but futile efforts to retain possession of a white baby whom he had adopted and on whom he lavished the finest clothing and luxuries which money could buy.

No liquor was found at either of the places raided. In fact it was not alleged that they were speak-easies but gambling houses. No gaming paraphernalia was found at 307 Spruce street.

At 829 Locust street, the police copped a crap table and four big bloodhued bones. Captain Stanley resurrected the cubes from the depths of a coal basket in the second-story front room where they had been shoved and shuffled up when the police were heard approaching.

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