Hallowe’en Prank Leads to Attempted Assault on Prophet

Image from Love Letters to the Library

Attempted on Mayor Prophet by One Jack O’Neil, Who Was Crazed From Drink.

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Had it Not Been for the Timely Arrival of Chief Watts Lima’s Chief Executive Would Have No Doubt Been Severely Handled — Trouble Precipitated Through the Arrest of O’Neil’s Son.

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The mayor’s court was the scene of much excitement yesterday, and for a short time it looked as if Lima’s chief executive would be viciously assaulted by a fellow who apparently is devoid of one iota of manhood. The fellow in question is one Jack O’Neil, a well known character among police officials.

Saturday night his son John, who, though young in years is already well known for his many depredations, was arrested for tearing up a board sidewalk. The incorrigible lad was celebrating Hallowe’en and, together with other boys, was engaged in destroying as much property as possible when an officer happened on the scene.

The other boys got away, but young O’Neill was caught and taken to police headquarters, where he was placed in jail being without necessary security. His trial was set for yesterday.

The father and mother were both present and the former was pretty well “organized” (drunk), which, it is said, is not unusual for him. It seems that his son was making $1 a day working somewhere in the city. This sum was, of course, given to his drunken father. In police court the father kept repeating that he would make Mayor Prophet pay $1 an hour during the time he held the boy as a prisoner. The mayor told him to cease, or he would find some means whereby he would keep quiet. This seemed to make the loquacious fellow very wrathy and he threatened His Hone with personal violence. Mayor Prophet only laughed at this, where-upon the angered husband and father started toward His Honor, who was seated in his occasional place. O’Neil’s eyes flashed with wild anger; his fists were clenched, and the mayor would, no doubt, have received summary treatment from the man crazed from excessive drink had it not been for the timely arrival of Chief Watts, who interfered by grabbing the fellow just as he was about to strike a vicious blow. The chief had heard angry voices from his office below and ran up stairs leading to the mayor’s office just in the nick of time as has been seen. O’Neill was soon subdued and he was soon after ejected.

The boy was fined $4.00. Probably because of the pleadings of the wife and mother, who seems to be a kindly woman, whose withered cheeks and furrowed brow tell far plainer than words of her suffering and misery the mayor allowed her husband to go without being fined.

O’Neill, it is said, is drunk almost constantly and abuses his son and wife in a manner not unlike a Barbarian. He has been in the criminal court numerous times, while his young son had been arrested upon several occasions for different offenses, one of which was robbing a postoffice.

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Nov 1, 1898

Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Nov 3, 1898

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‘ROUND LIMA HOUR BY HOUR — WITH APOLOGIES
BY OH. OH. JACKENRIM
A Page from the Diary of an Antiquated Reporter — (TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO) —

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Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Dec 30, 1923

Brief Bio:

From:

Title: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association…., Volume 36
Authors: Ohio State Bar Association, Ohio State Bar Association. Meeting
Publisher    F.J. Heer, 1915
Pgs 138-139 (google book link)

Title: The history of Fuller’s Ohio brigade, 1861-1865: its great march, with roster, portraits, battle maps and biographies
Author: Charles H. Smith
Publisher    Press of A. J. Watt, 1909
pgs 341-343