THE SHERIFF'S DILEMMA.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12681, 28 October 1909, Page 4

THE SHERIFF'S DILEMMA.

There is a law in Kentucky popularly known as the "Jim Crow Coach Law." By tin's Act coloured citizens and plain, or white, citizens must not occupy the same compartment irx any ooaofi an any lino of railway within tho State. In April, 1896," a white man, being a sheriff, had to escort three coloured convicts to a penitentiary. The sheriff and his charges boarded a train, and were seated in the "Jim Crow" compartment. In that compartment were a dozen AfroAmericans, blameless before the law. They objected to the presence of a white man in their compartment. "The Sap'rate Coach Act says no white man shall ride in any co-part-men' reserved for culled citizens, said a black preacher. ■ 'Ain't no question, 'bout that,"assented a yellow book-agent. Tho conductor -was called, and a committee" of three expounded the law and insisted upon the rights thereby secured to coloured citizens. The sheriff argued from, the executive exigencies of the occasion. "I ain't a-goiu' to leave them prisoners ont o' my sight," he said. But the conductor, the supremo authority upon a train in transit, decided that the sheriff must get out of the "Jim Crow" compartment, but ho might take his three prisoners with him, if he chose, which he did choose. In a smoker, a white folks' compartment, the appearance of tlireo negro criminals aroused angry feelings ° "Hero, captain," shouted a tobaccocropper, "wo can't have no niggers in this compartment." The sheriff rose to make an explanation. "Gentlemen, I've got to take these here coloured convicts to Eddyville. Now, if I can't go in the Jim Crow because I'm white, and the prisoners can't stay in here, bein' niggers, I want you, gentlemen, to tell mo- how in thunder I'm to deliver my prisoners 'co'din to my instructions?" "Git out and walk," was tho unanimous verdict, expressed vociferously, and without a second's hesitation. " Meanwhile the train had gone a matter of ten miles from its starting point. Nevertheless, the sheriff and" his pnVonws had to get off at a small wayside station, where the pied combination waited some hours before a freight train came along and hospitably received them into its caboose. "Harper's Magazine."