Rendezvous for Immoral Purposes

The Daily Record, February 6, 1924

 The Lawrenceville cemetery should be paved if it is to be used as a rendezvous for Vincennes men with Lawrenceville ladies. At least this is the opinion of those who helped pull the Ford car, driven by Waldo Oliphant and William Graef of the city on the Wabash, out of the cemetery Monday night.

Every effort was made to suppress the news of the incident by C. H. Parriott, chairman of the police committee, and the night police who assisted in the rescue of the party. “Because of the prominence of people concerned, we will say nothing more about it,” was the dictum of the authorities who permitted the men to return to Vincennes without placing them under arrest. It is expected, presumably, that the citizens of Lawrenceville are to pay for the damage done to the grave yard.

The Vincennes men explained that they were lost, that they were trying to find the road north to Pinkstaff, an explanation that is made more plausible by the fact that the woman has not lived in Lawrenceville more than twenty years and is unfamiliar with the roads leading out of Lawrenceville. The woman is well- known divorcee of the city who has been mixed up in a number of disreputable affairs.

That a charge of disorderly conduct should have been placed against the men and the woman, is the generally expressed opinion of men about town as details of the story gradually leaked out. Most people are wondering what has become of Alderman’s Parriott’s platform “to clean up the city.” Two local youth of less prominence who went on a tear in the cemetery last summer, are now serving terms in the reformatory. The statutes of the city and state provide that a fine of $200 for the offense against the state and $50.00 for the offense against the city may be assessed against anyone convicted of disorderly conduct if committed under circumstance similar to those of Monday night.

Repeated complaints have been registered by Lawrenceville people of persons who make the cemetery a rendezvous for immoral purposes and it would seem as though the officials were not giving all the assistance possible when they permit such affairs to go unnoticed.

Research by J King. (This is not John King's usual scholarly articles that he sends to me, but I promised him I would not make any snarky remarks if he would help me find some blog articles. So this is what he sent. . . . )