The Morning News

The opening of so many turpentine camps, while it brings much business, is also bringing in a very undesirable class of citizens in the many desperate characters among the negro operatives, says a report from Cedar Keys. As the south-bound passenger train halted at Rosewood Saturday evening, a few miles north of that place, the conductor, Capt. Joe Beckham, discovered two who had beaten their way from the station beyond. On his forbidding them to attempt the game again, he was answered by an insulting epithet, and one of them pulled a revolver and fired point blank at Beckham, who was sitting in his baggage car door. As soon as the conductor could secure his revolver from his grip he stepped to the door, and was met by a second shot, one of the balls passing through his coat. The conductor sprang to the ground, and ordered the man to stop, as he would put him under arrest. The negro fired a third time, when Capt. Beckham fired three times in rapid succession. The negro ran about one hundred yards and fell dead, his pistol still grasped in his hand.