City and County of New York, ss.:
My name is Jesse Payne. I reside at 255 West 93rd Street. I work there as a waiter in a boarding house. On the evening of August 15th I was sent down to accompany a small boy, by the name of Allan Atkins, to his home, 223 West 18th Street. He took an 8th Avenue car at 93rd Street, and I rode alongside the car until I got to 59th Street. I told him I would ride on, and I rode about a block in front of the car. We went down this way until we approached 34th Street. Around the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue I saw a crowd standing. It stretched all over the street and sidewalk. I thought that some one was hurt, and that was the reason the crowd had collected, but when I got into the crowd they did not seem to be standing around no one, and I did not know what was the matter until I passed 34th Street, and was about half way to 33rd Street. I was still on the west side of the car track riding on the wheel, and about half a block in front of the car in which the boy was, and about half a block behind another car, trying to follow the pathway it made in the street. When I got to the middle of the block a policeman ran out from the sidewalk from the west and raised his club and hit me across the mouth, saying, "What the hell are you riding here for?" This blow split my lip and broke off two of my front teeth; it also knocked me off the wheel, but I scrambled up and ran between the east side of 8th Avenue, dragging my wheel with me, and away from the policeman. The policeman followed right upon me, clubbing me, and the whole crowd was after me. I tried to get into a store, and they shoved me back, and they would not let me in. While I was going from where I was knocked off my wheel to the east side of the street a policeman who struck me kept on clubbing me. The first blow he gave me knocked me kind of foolish, but I hung on to my wheel. When I got to the curb I fell, because I missed the step. After I got up another policeman came up to me and said, "What the hell are you doing here with that wheel?" I says, "I ain't done nothing to anybody, just going on a message to take a boy home;" and he grabbed the wheel and hit me over the hand with his club. That made me let go the wheel. It was taken away from me and I have not seen it since. Then I ran away about four doors from 8th Avenue, and a third officer told me to stop and sit down, "If you don't they will kill you;" and he stood there and protected me until he sent another officer for a patrol wagon and took me to the station house, and I was there until four o'clock in the morning. I have been employed by Mrs. McFarland, at 255 West 93rd Street for about three months; before that with Annie Sterler, of 44 West 35th Street—this is a boarding house, and I was a waiter there for two years; with Mrs. Gillies, of 18 West 9th Street, two and a half years. I know Rev. Mr. Franklin, of Zion Church, corner 10th and Bleecker Streets.
his
Jesse x Payne.
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Sworn to before me this 22nd day of August, 1900.
Samuel L. Wolff, Notary Public (77), N. Y. County.
City and County of New York, ss.:
My name is John B. Mallory. I reside at 206 West 62nd Street. While coming home from the engineers' lectures my friend Gordon Jones and myself came up to 7th Avenue through 29th Street where the colored Engineers' Hall is. We turned into 39th Street and went west towards 8th Avenue. We saw a crowd of white men and boys coming around the corner towards us. Before the gang reached us a policeman said to my friend and myself, "Get out of here," and began clubbing me and my friend; he struck my friend first, and my friend ran towards Broadway. Then after being struck four or five times, and as soon as I could, I ran up on a stoop. The policeman did not have a hold of me, but began striking me, and kept up with me. When I got on top of the stoop he ran after me, and caught hold of me and shoved me down. He said again, "Get out of here." It made me fall down the stairs, and I was on my hands and knees on the walk. Then the policeman left me at the mercy of the mob, and he went across the street where he was at first. The mob began punching me, hitting me with sticks, kicking and hitting me with their fists, and split my lip open, cut my nose, and bruised my forehead. Then I got up and put my hands on my face and head, and stood up against the railing by the stoop of the house where I was shoved down. Then another policeman came to me and said to me, "Have you sense enough to go home?" I said "Yes." I got on an 8th Avenue car, in which he got on, and began going uptown about fifteen or twenty feet, when another policeman came up and got on the car from the left-hand side, and shoved me out towards the right-hand side, where the mob was. He said, "Get out of here." As I was pushed off a man at the side struck at me, but I dodged him and jumped on the car again. The car was moving when the policeman shoved me off of it. The policeman who protected me made the motorman stop the car for me to get on, and I got on the front of the car again. The policeman who protected me said to the policeman who shoved me off, "Get off, and let him alone." He got off then. The policeman who protected me stood on the car until I got up one block out of the mob, and then he got off. I rode on this 8th Avenue car up to 59th Street, and I stood between two men. One of them offered me his handkerchief to wipe the blood off my face, and when I got to 59th Street they advised me to go to Roosevelt Hospital, and I asked one of them to get a transfer for me. He did this, and I went to Roosevelt Hospital, where I had three stitches put in my lip. I am still going to the hospital, and am under treatment; my back and both shoulders are injured, and I am generally bruised all over. I have no bad habits. I do not smoke or drink, and I am a student at the International Correspondence School, Scranton, Pa. I have been through the public schools, and I am studying to be a mechanical engineer. I also attend lectures at the Colored Engineers' Association, on 29th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. I know Mrs. S. E. Lodewick, of 800 Lexington Avenue; C. W. Phillips, 11 Broadway; L. P. Sawyer, Mrs. J. F. Aitken, Mrs. Mary Baker, Mrs. E. R. Clark, and Mrs. A. Arnold, all of 153 Madison Avenue. I have known these people for about eight years, and they can all testify to my good character.