The Dairyman Who Waited at the Jail Door for the Jury
Jurors touring Colville's new county prison met a freshly convicted man, Dan Elgie of Onion Creek, who called every man on his panel by name and told him exactly what he thought.
A number of the regular panel of the jury who have been sitting in the trial of cases during the month of February took advantage Thursday of the opportunity offered by Sheriff Graham to visit and inspect the new jail building, which is considered one of the most modern county prisons in the state. While they were passing through the corridors of the prison quarters they met with an unexpected but furious reception at the hands of Dan Elgie, the Onion Creek dairyman, against whom a number of them participated in the finding of a verdict of guilty of criminal assault on Tuesday. Elgie, who is an artist in invective, singled out each juryman who sat in the case and roundly cursed him as he passed the door, with no reserve of language or energy in voicing his opinion of the gentlemen who passed judgment in his case. — Colville Examiner.
“Elgie, who is an artist in invective, singled out each juryman who sat in the case and roundly cursed him as he passed the door, with no reserve of language or energy in voicing his opinion of the gentlemen who passed judgment in his case.”
Colville was the seat of Stevens County when this ran — Newport's own county until Pend Oreille County split off in 1911 — so its jail tour and its grudges were local news. The image of a condemned man standing at a corridor door naming his jurors one by one is a reminder that the courtroom drama the papers loved happened in places that are still small enough for everybody to know everybody.
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