The Morristown Gazette

One of the boldest attempts at highway robbery that has yet taken place in Morristown, occurred on a public street one night last week. Squire Gorman, an aged and corpulent gentleman who resides in Cocke county, well known to many of our citizens, had purchased a shirt and left the store for his hotel. The night was very dark, and the Squire on entering the street, took the wrong course, and pursued it some distance, when he met some person unknown to him and asked the direction to his hotel. He was told that it was in an opposite direction from that he was traveling. He thereupon turned around and was proceeding in the right direction, but had gone only a short distance when he was suddenly jostled from behind, and some one snatched his bundle and ran swiftly up the street in the direction of the Opera House. The 'Squire took after the fleeing rogue as fast as he could, and chased him so closely that the thief dropped the bundle, which the 'Squire picked up. Mr. Gorman thinks he would have caught the thief (who doubtless was the same individual who directed him to the hotel and afterward followed him, knowing that he was a stranger in the place), if he had not accidentally stumbled over the old steps in the alley in the rear of the Opera House, thereby giving the scoundrel a chance to get away.