Capt. Ewen Pays For Telling The Truth.
Friends Of Curtis Jett Believed To Have Started Conflagration.
ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE DISGRACEFUL HISTORY OF BREATHITT COUNTY.
Jackson, Ky., June 15.--Capt. B. J. Ewen the man who testified that he saw Curtis Jett shoot Attorney J. B. Marcum in the Breathitt county court house, has felt the vengeance of Jett's supporters and friends. On Sunday, the City hotel, of which Capt. Ewen is the proprietor, was almost totally destroyed by fire, leaving the man who had the courage to tell the truth practically penniless. There is no evidence to prove that Jett's friends set the fire, but the case are enough to convince the general public that the adherents of the murderer were the incendiaries.
The fire started in a recently completed addition to the hotel, which at the time was occupied. There being no fire department in Jackson the flames could not be extinguished until the building was practically destroyed.
A detachment of the militia, at whose camp Capt. Ewen has been staying assisted the fifteen guests to escape from the hotel, but their effects and all of the furniture were destroyed.
The insurance policy had just been cancelled by the company holding it and Capt. Ewen's loss is total. The hotel and its furnishings comprised substantially everything he had in the world.
Joe Crawford and Ed Thap, teamsters at the employ of Hargis brothers were arrested by the soldiers just before the fire was discovered and were afterwards held on suspicion. Their employers at once swore out habea corpus writs and demanded the release of the men Major Allen the commander of the militia, asked to be given until this morning to file an answer, but Judge Redwine refused his request and after hearing the arguments of both sides ordered the men released on bail. The friends of Crawford and Thap refused to become their bondsmen, however, and they are still in irons in the military prison.