The spirit of fair play has saved the life of David McNeal, an ex-Service man, who was committed for trial at Thorold, Ontario, recently, on a charge of murdering a four-year-old girl named Margaret Boucock. A mob numbering several thousand surrounded the Town Hall, determined to, lynch. the prisoner who, with several policemen, was besieged on an upper' floor. When darkness fell, the crowd began to fusillade the building with bricks and stones, shattering all the windows. The men inside saved their lives by huddling in the corners, and the policemen fired several shots to frighten the crowd, but without effect.
The mob then "threw. flares through the shattered windows of the Town Hall, and several men attacked the doors and threw into the building a bundle of hay soaked in petrol, which sct the ground floor on fire. The flames and dense clouds of smoke and soot forced the. besieged men to surrender: They had been under attack since early in the afternoon. We surrender." McNeal yelled, as he descended the stairs, handcuffed to the Chief of Police. The crowd seized him and conveyed him to an automobile; meanwhile the rope from the flagstaff on the Town Hall had been seized, and preparations were made to lynch the—terror-stricken prisoner, who screamed for mercy.
Someone in the crowd yelled out, "Give him a chance," and this sentiment seemed to meet with popular approval. McNeal himself begged for a chance to make a. statement, saying "Men, if you are men, give me a chance to make a statement. They may be my last words on earth." The crowd: then took him to the steps of the public library. where for a space of half an hour he spoke before the hushed crowd. With dramatic. emphasis he declared that he had not killed the dead girl. "Only a degenerate," he said, "could do such a thing." From one section of the crowd came insistent appeals" to give the man a chance, and when McNeal had_ finished speaking there was no further talk of lynching him. The crowd, indeed, was almost jovial. No one touched McNeal, and the Chief of Police took his prisoner off in a motor-car at full speed towards Welland before the crowd had time to change its mind.
The mutilated body of the girl was found in the woods, and since the discovery search parties have been scouring the country side for trace of a child of six named Kath-Tecn Beecham, who disappeared about the same time. During the preliminary hearing at the Court House on Monday afternoon women joined men in attempting to assault the prisoner,. who was struck several times.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.