Typed as spelled and written
Lena Stone Criswell

THE MARLIN DEMOCRAT
Eighteenth Year - Number 46
Marlin, Texas, Wednesday, October 30, 1907
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MEDICINE MAN AFTER HIM.
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Aged Darkey From the Bottom
Swears Out Complaint.
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       Wm. Stafford, an aged and honest looking darkey from the Clark (f)arm in the bottom was in town Monday with a story to the effect that the medicine men were after him and that they had threatened dire vengeance on him if he did not at once produce $10 which he owed them.
       Stafford says that last spring his wife purchased a "description" from an agent who guaranteed cure about everything that the African flesh is heir to, and then some.  That after the medicine came it turned out to be no account.   Still, says Stafford he intended to pay the price, as his word was out, but that when the collector called around Friday and Saturday he did not have the money and he hasn't got it yet.  He avers that the medicine man made ominous gestures and used language more vigorous than polite, accompanied by a choice lot of threats as to what he would do in case the money was not forthcoming today.
       Stafford saw the sun shine on him Monday morning and his financial condition was the same as on Saturday.  Hence the sun was not very high before he reached Marlin.  He swore out complaints against the medicine man, and armed with the processes he left to intercept Deputy Watkins and to point out the offender against his safety and the peace and dignity of the state.
       It is evidently another case of the smooth, city tongued representative of a foreign house preying upon the ignorant and unsophistocated, (sic) by separating them from their hard earned cash without an adequate return for the same.

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