ADOLPHUS D. PAXTON

A. D. PAXTON BADLY HURT

His Assailant Was Alva Johnston of Metz

Cause of the Trouble.

Special Correspondence of the Mail.

     Metz, July 3.--A very bad affair occurred this morning near here on Dr. G. W. Petty's farm, one mile east of here where a party were haying.

     A. D. Paxton, an old man of some 68 years, was making hay when Alva Johnston, a young man was passing along the road some hundred yards away on a hay rake.  Seeing Mr. Paxton he stopped his team in the road, crawled through the fence with a club in his hand and approached Mr. Paxton, unobserved by him until right at him, when Mr. Paxton alighted from his take and started to run.  But Johnston sprang at him and dealt him two severe blows on the head knocking him unconscious and then stomped him in the face.  He then walked back to his waiting team and went leisurely east toward his home three miles east of here.  The assault was made in plain view of parties who were about 200 yards distant in the field, but was so sudden and unexpected that Johnston made good his escape.

     Mr. Paxton was taken home and Drs. Petty and Hornback summoned while the constable was started after Johnston with a warrant.  Mr. Paxton late this evening was unconscious with paralysis of one side.  The doctors expect to trephine his skull tomorrow if his condition justifies it.

     Johnston has so far eluded arrest.  Such a vicious assault by a strong young man upon so old an enfeebled a man is generally condemned, although it is believed by many that Mr. Paxton deserved milder chastising, as it is claimed that he has been putting out poison and killing old lady Johnston's chickens, who lives near him where old Metz village once stood.  The affair is generally regretted.

The Nevada Daily Mail, Nevada, Missouri.  July 4, 1901.

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