Saturday, 6th September 1913: Grand Jury Adjourns To Go To Ball Game, The Atlanta Constitution

After a brief session on Friday the grand jury returned fourteen true bills and adjourned in time for the ball game.

The case of Jim Conley, negro sweeper at the National Pencil companys factory, confessed accessory after the fact of Mary Phagans murder, was not considered by the grand jury.

Among the true bills rendered were the following:

Simpson Brown, colored, charged with the murder of Charlie Hill, colored.

Charles L. Smith, alias C. R. Smith, charged with bigamy, his alleged plurality of spouses being Miss Gertrude Wilson and Miss Lennie Spain.

P. M. Christian, charged with simple assault upon a young girl.

W. K. Dunn, charged with using a black jack upon some newsboys in a recent disturbance.

MRS.

CRAWFORD WANTS GRAND JURY TO ACT

With a view to getting at something definite the case against Mrs. Mary Belle Crawford, charged with having poisoned her husband, Joshua B. Crawford, her attorney, Burton Smith, has made a formal demand upon Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey, asking that the matter be brought to the immediate attention of the grand jury.

No steps in that direction, however, have yet been taken.

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WHAT BROYLES SAYS.

City Recorder Nash R. Broyles is the foremost authority on crime and crime conditions in the city of Atlanta.

His long tenure of the office he now holds gives him that prestige.

He is not given to wild or extravagant statements.

Recorder Broyles has just returned from a months absence from the city.

He brings to the situation a new and unbiased perspective.

Here is what this expert says about the crime wave in Atlanta:

One thing noticeable upon my return is the wave of crime that seems to have swept over the city.

I have never seen things so bad at this particular season.

It is inexplicable.

Crime seems to have clutched Atlanta in a grip that is irresistible.

In a spirt of warning rather than of personal vindication,

The Constitution cites these expressions of Judge Broyles to those who have been indignantly denying that crime in Atlanta was in any respect at variance with the normal.

The man whose business it has for many years been to deal with every feature of its crime at its fountain head declares that present conditions are unprecedented at this season.

A situation of this nature is a dangerous one.

The automatic tendency is not self-healing, but exactly the reverse.

The city that does not check an epidemic of crime invites its reckless spread, precisely as does the city that neglects an epidemic of disease.

We warn the police commission, we warn the police department, we warn the people generally of Atlanta against a condition the underlying threat of which is anarchy.