Does not take things lightly.

Eau Claire- U.S Court-Commissioner Doolittle had a queer case yesterday afternoon Abel Channing, of Bloomer, arrested at the insistence of Postoffice-Inspector E.E. Frazer, was brought before the commissioner on the charge of having mailed an offensive letter at the Bloomer postoffice, said letter being addressed to Miss E. A. Channing, case of Caleb Channing, Whitewater, Wis. The Whitewater man is understood to be a brother of the defendant. Abel Channing was held for trial, and his bond was fixed at $300. He could not furnish same and was committed to jail, and was taken from Eau Claire to Madison last night by Deputy United States-Marshal Jonas, to be confined in the Dane County Bastille till the trial comes off. The prisoner was married two or three days ago. He claims he received a letter which was as bad as the one he wrote.

Chad’s Take: Old-School Cyber Bullying

 

Sir Chad Lewis

How can the paper report a story about a letter that was so vicious  it sent a man to jail without actually disclosing the contents of said letter?  By leaving out this pertinent information, the newspaper has left us to speculate on the tone and content of the letter. Most people would probably guess  the letter included a death threat to his sister-in-law; however, knowing this time period pretty well, I would guess  the letter directly attacked his sister-in-law’s sexual promiscuity, in a not so polite manner. Even so, I am a bit surprised to learn that simply writing a mean letter to a family member would be a serious enough offense to land one in jail. Knowing this, you may heed the teaching of this article the next time you are about to shoot off that evil email and /or Facebook status update to your family.

Keep an eye out...