The Logue Assault
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Stratton and Mellon on Trial in Court.
LOGUE'S STORY OF THE ATTACK
The Young Woman Tells Her Story —Damaging Evidence Against the Defendants.
In the Quarter Sessions Court yesterday afternoon the case of John F. Stratton and Henry Mellon, the two young men charged with the murderous attack upon Joseph Logue, near Starr's crossing, Tenth and Line streets, on May 6th, was begun. Ex-Judge Wescott and Howard Carrow conducted the defense and Prosecutor Jenkins appeared for the State. In response the latter's command for witnesses to take the benches on the right of the bar enclosure, fourteen persons arose from the audience and took seats there.
The first witness was Logue himself, who had been confined in the Cooper Hospital about ten days suffering from his injuries. He is a tall, well-built young fellow of 32. "On the evening of May 6th," he said, "I was in company with Miss Sarah Lewine; I was walking along Haddon avenue. We started from Third and Royden street. We walked out Benson to Haddon avenue and out to Newton avenue, and turned up Newton avenue toward Federal street. Just after we crossed the Camden and Atlantic railroad, these two men sprang up and the tallest one, Stratton, took hold of the lady and the smaller one, Mellon, took hold of me. I asked them what they wanted and they said they arrested me. I asked them what I had done and they said I would find out. Stratton kept telling Mellon to take the woman away. Mellon pulled open his coat and showed what looked like a star, saying that was his authority for making the arrest. He hit me in the head with a blackjack. Then when I tried to get away Stratton stabbed me in the side with a knife."
"Do you identify either of these men?" asked Mr. Jenkins.
"Yes, sir; I am positive Stratton is the tall one. Mellon looks like the smaller man of the two. I described the two men before I was arrested."
Ex-Judge Wescott's rigid cross-examination failed to shake his story in any detail. He identified Stratton, who was taken to him in the hospital, as the taller man of the two.
"What were you doing out there?" asked ex-Judge Wescott.
"Taking a walk."
"Who was the lady?"
"Miss Sarah Lewine."
"How long have you known her?"
"About six years."
The next witness was Miss Lewine, a chestnut-haired, ruddy complexioned young woman, of about thirty summers. "I was to meet Mr. Logue at eight o'clock that night," she began with a smile, "but it might have been a few minutes after."
She corroborated Logue's testimony, adding that as the men came up to them she pulled Logue's coat to signal him to keep quiet." "After Mr. Logue was cut," she said, "the two men ran past me. Mr. Logue came back to me and said he was stabbed, and that I should go home."
She was unable to identify either of the defendants as the assailants of that night. Mr. Wescott tried hard to entangle her as to her ability to determine the difference in the sizes of the two men as they lay upon the ground, but she refused to be tangled up and adhered rigidly to her story with marked indications of deepest truth and sincerity.
"Now, Miss Lewine, you have frequently heard that one of the men was tall and the other short, havn't [sic] you?" asked Mr. Wescott.
"Didn't I see them?" answered the witness pertinaciously, and all further questioning failed to get more from her.
Christopher Smith, of 1904 Fillmore street, employed as night watchman on the Line street sewer, then in course of construction. On the night of the assault he saw Stratton and Mellon about 7 o'clock. Mellon came up to him and spoke, and shortly afterwards Stratton came up. Mellon took a knife out of his pocket, continued Smith and handed it to Stratton. The latter said 'If anybody bothers me, I'll cut the d—— guts out of them.' 'The blade, I guess, must have been three or four inches long. The handle was of bone, I think. They stayed there about half an hour and it was dark when they left, walking up Haddon avenue.
The point where the defendants were seen by Smith is a square from where the assault was committed. Mr. Jenkins tried to show that both young men frequented this particular locality, but it being objected to he withdrew it. Smith admitted that he saw Mellon have a blackjack one night at Haddon avenue and Line street. Stratton was with him at the time. That was on Friday, May 4th, two days before the assault.
The Court took a recess at this point till this morning.
When the case was resumed this morning Logue produced in evidence, the coat he wore the night he was assaulted, exhibiting the hole cut by the knife and the blood stains from the wounds in the head and side.
Then Dr. Henry Jarrett, resident physician of the Cooper Hospital, was called. He testified as to the wounds received and said the knife thrust might have been fatal if it had gone in deep enough, or Logue might have bled to death if a large enough blood vessel had been severed.
"Could he have bled to death from either of the wounds?" asked Mr. Jenkins.
"No, sir."
"How long have you been practicing?" asked Mr. Wescott.
"I have been at Cooper Hospital since July 28th, last."
"When did you graduate?"
"A year ago last April."
"That will do."
Charles R. Locke, a fellow employe of Mellon's at the paper mill, 83 Cooper St., saw Mellon have, on the Friday before the assault, a large knife, such as sailors carry, with a blade two and a half or three inches long. It had a rough bone handle.
Knight Haines, a boy, on the Saturday night before the assault, between 8.30 and 9.30 saw Stratton and Mellon on the lots in front of the city hall, within a short distance of where Logue was attacked. Stratton and Mellon were on their hands and knees and when they recognised him they said: "Oh, it's you, is it? Don't give us away." He said Stratton had a knife and Mellon a blackjack.
"Did you have a girl with you?" asked Mr. Wescott.
"I don't know," said Haines, smiling.