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It is a dull week indeed that our neighbor city of Elvins cannot furnish food for comment and thought to the balance of St. Francois county.
It is reported that on Monday evening of this week our neighbor city staged a real western street fight and the stranger within their gates might well have imagined that he was in California in '49.
At Elvins they have a concrete building which has been used as a restaurant for several years; this was the immediate scene of the start of the fight. The dramatis personae was: Jim Rollens, the village marshall, Bert Rollens, the brother of the Marshall, Tom and Charles Harris, of Elvins, Chris Leech of Flat River and old man Hughes, keeper of the restaurant.
The Marshall had both eyes battered up, his brother was thrashed and old man Hughes was hit on the head with a brick.
As the only stranger from out of town involved in the affair it is reported that Leech was arrested and fined.
Elvins seems to have been occupying too much of the center of the stage recently and so Bonne Terre, on last Friday evening, staged several rows that would be at least equal to anything Elvins could brag of.
Bill Stotler seems to have been in the general vicinity of the old "Bucket of Blood" saloon and to have partaken copiously of soda water, at least our informant states that early in the evening Stotler would have had trouble hitting the ground with his hat, but anyway, Stotler has been reported to have indulged a passion for rolling certain little square pieces of bone, which pastime is usually for fun. Popular rumor has it that Stotler at one time had a certain fifty cents and being absorbed in the pastime he found himself short the fifty cents and accused Gent Horn of having it, whereat Mr. Horn took offense and did many and awful things to Stotler, including a broken collar bone and a few kicked in ribs and a general battering up. We understand that Stotler has been urged to make a sworn statement and perhaps has, although we are informed that he denies being drunk and gambling and says that Horn just assaulted him on the street. There is a well defined impression that Stotler is trying to get Horn to make a settlement for his injuries. The affair created a little stir on the street.
Also on the same evening a party by the name of Trask from the Lead Belt seems to have arrived in town looking for trouble and went into the Wilkson restaurant where Arthur Bullock happed to be eating his supper. Trask began making remarks that did not go well with Bullock and Uncle John arrived on the scene and tried to smooth up the matter but Trask kept it up and he would probably have got hurt if friends had not come in and taken Bullock away.
A busted window in the Lemp Building next door to the Wilkson Restaurant bears mute testimony to the fact that on Monday night a number of youngsters went on the war path and exuded cuss words and threw rocks, ad lib. Constable Bullock, early in the evening, nipped a small row in the bud and shooed the youngsters home on their promise to go home and stay. Later in the evening they came back and must have had it out.