News articles: Blandinsville Star-Gazette, Blandinsville IL

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Charles Fisher guilty of running a pool hall without a license 1914

"A very funny account of the trail of Carl Phillips and Charles Fisher charged with running a pool hall without a license in Blandinsville. Per the article, the courthouse was packed "and the fire engines, caboose cage ,and galleries running around the walls were covered with eager listeners....When the witnesses were called there developed some of the most marvelous cases of defective memory that have ever been recorded. The Society of Psychical research has never found anything like it. Steady and constant players by the most violent effort could only recall one game and that in a hazy, dim, and indistinct way that furnished no recollection of any details as to the other players or the mode of settlement. Their earnest and strenuous but futile efforts to recall some of these desired details created so much merriment among the onlookers that the combined efforts of the judge and mayor and marshall were required to suppress it....The prosecution maintained that this was gambling and the defense claimed it was simply entertainment. The offense of running without a license was only lightly touched upon though this was really the issue....Attorney Warner of LaHarpe began his argument for the prosecution. It was a cracker jack. He pictured the ruined homes and corrupted youth of Blandinsville...He made the offense appear so heinous and devilish that stiff arguments took place around the edge of the crowd as to whether the death penalty could be inflicted for anything except premeditated murder....The defendants lawyer Earl Grigsby made a logical and convincing legal plea. He read from the decisions of the supreme court where exactly similar cases had been decided in favor of the defendants, and showed that the ordinances of Blandinsville do not forbid the running of pool hals without a license....When he finished the fellows out on the edge argued that Warner was throwing it into Blandinsville people because he was from LaHarpe and that he better go up there and look after the pool rooms, and that all he had said about the ruined youth of Blandinsville was all (?) rot anyhow." Even so the jury returned a verdict of guilty and assessed each of the defendants a fine of fifty dollars and costs. "The defense gave notice it would appeal and for the present the pool room is still running." Phillips and Fisher win on appeal per the next article. It is interesting to note that Charles apparently ran for and became town Marshall shortly after this fiasco, sometime before Apr 1916 when the Blandinsville Star-Gazette reports "Orville Fisher, of Blandinsville, entered a plea of guilty to the charge of assaulting his cousin Charles Fisher, city marshall of Blandinsville."

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