Henry Pratt before Attempted Lynching

Assault Charged Against Henry Pratt at Tuskaloosa. Ten Year Old White Girl The Victim. A Negro Boy Drowned. Frank Grant Shot During AItercation. MOBILE & OHIO Special to the Blrmingham News Tuskaloosa. Ala., Aug. 13.-Henry Pratt. a negro blacksmith is in the county jail charged with attempted assault on little white girl. Mr. and Mrs. Reiss, who live near the Baptist Church were awakened Saturday of night about one o’clock by the cries of their little girls who were sleeping on a pallet in the adjoining room, the When they hastened in a negro man was seen coming from the room. Sallie Leona Reiss, the older child about ten years of age. said that the man was trying to kill her The father the and mother. however, believe that he had worse intentions than murder and at once gave the alarm. Suspicion rested at once upon Pratt who was real employed by Mr. Reiss, who is himself a blacksmith. Pratt had been at the give house the evening before waiting for his money and had seen Mrs. Reiss making the pallet for the two little and girls. Chief of Police McGill searched me all day Sunday and that night suceeded in locating Pratt at the house of a colored woman. When arrested and he acknowledge to being the man in the room but refused to give any reason for his presence saying that he was and drunk and did not know what he was doing. He was placed in the jail instead of the calaboose. It was reported yesterday that about twenty men went to the guard house only to find the man safe in jail. Pratt was tried in Justice Carson’s court yesterday and was held under $500 bond.