BROTHER CAPPS FINALLY CONDEMNED.
MANY of our readers will remember mention in the SIGNS of the case of Brother W. B. Capps, who was arrested last year, in Weakley County, Tenn., for working on Sunday. The following press dispatch tells the outcome of the trial:— DRESDEN (Tenn.), July 13.—W. B. Capps, a quiet, orderly citizen of this county, is being made the victim of a rank case of religious persecution, the only charge against him being that he performed some work on the first day of the week. Capps was arrested in June, 1893, and at his trial before the Circuit Court of Weakley County, he was fined $10 and costs, amounting to $51.80. His case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which affirmed the judgment of the lower court, fixing the cost at $58.65, making as a grand total the sum of $110.45, to be served out at the paltry rate of 25 cents a day. This will necessitate the confinement of the prisoner 442 days, or one year and nearly three months. Mr. Capps has a wife and four children, the eldest being only six years old, and one of them was sick at the time of its father's imprisonment. His family is left all alone in the woods, a quarter of a mile from any house, and penniless. He does not deny working on Sunday, but did so because he had rested the day before. He refuses to pay the fine and costs, regarding them as unjust, and has gone to jail, though a physician stated that he could never live in that unhealthy place the time required by the enormity of the State's assessment.