The Battle of the Bazaar Receipts

Judge Osborn's court yesterday witnessed an interesting case that seemed to be the outgrowth of a neighborhood quarrel at Bothell over the affairs of the Methodist Episcopal church there. The suit was between two factions over the possession of the receipts of a church bazaar held on July 4, 1892. The story brought out by the pleadings and the testimony is a very peculiar one. At the time of the events which led up to the suit, the church was in debt for carpenter work that had been done on the building. The bazaar was opened for the purpose, as many of the church members believed, of paying off this indebtedness. The sum of $72 was realized, and this came into the hands of Charles Beardslee, a young man who was interested in the affair. Most of the young people of the congregation, who were not, however, members of the church, and some of the older ones, determined that the money should be used to paint and paper the church. The board of trustees, which consisted of George Bothell, J. J. Harvey, Thomas Cole, George Burdick, E. J. Ross, R. L. Chase and A. J. Bower, insisted that it should be used to pay off the old debt. In order to have the money put to what they deemed the proper use, the trustees began suit in Justice Von Tobel's court to compel Beardslee to surrender it to them. They won their case, but it was appealed to the superior court by the other side.