“Wilcox Posse Trails Negro”

WILCOX POSSE TRAILS NEGRO. Lynching is Fully Expected If the Culprit is Caught. WHITE MEN ARE WOUNDED. Desperate Defense of Clint Montgomery Results In Fatal Shooting of Ernest Slade. Lynching in Texas. MONTGOMERY, Ala., Dec. 21.—While all is quiet today about Lamison, Wilcox county, the scene of the shooting of four white men, and the burning of a negro Monday, posses are in pursuit of Will Montgomery, the fourth negro implicated in the murder of Algernon Lewis on Saturday. Sheriff Grant who went to Linden yesterday with the two negroes captured, reached home early today and joined in the chase. A long distance telephone message says that the feeling is so high that the negro will almost certainly be lynched If caught. Ernest Slade, one of the men shot In the attempt to dislodge Clint Montgomery before has was burned, is yet alive, but with his eyes and teeth shot out and his face mangled, he is an ever-present incentive to his friends to kill every negro implicated in the trouble, and the anger increases with his approach to death. Neither of the other three men shot are seriously injured. Monday afternoon Clint Montgomery and several other negroes were found barricaded In a house, which was soon surrounded by a determined body of whites. Fearing for their lives Montgomery’s companions deserted him and surrendered to the posse. Montgomery fastened the door, after defying the men to attempt to get him. One of his negro companions was then forced to set fire to the house, and soon the house was enveloped in smoke and flame. Montgomery then threw open a window and opened fire with telling effect upon the posse with a magazine shotgun. Ernest Slade fell mortally wounded, his face and body filled with shot. N. G. Carlton, Tom Shields and William Lindsey were also wounded, though not seriously. A fusilade of shots struck Montgomery as he was attempting to leave the house, his body being riddled and then allowed to be consumed in the burning building. A report Is to the effect that Brister and Shelley Montgomery were placed in the Linden jail Monday afternoon. Albert Watkins, another negro suspected of harboring the Montgomery brothers, is under arrest here. A long distance message from Linden says that Brister and Shelley Montgomery, two of the negroes implicated in the killing of Algernon Lewis at Arlington, are under arrest and are now being taken to Linden. When they will arrive there is not known. The citizens of Magnolia have countermanded their order to Governor Comer for troops.