It appears from the record that on the evening of August 9, 1910, at about the hour of seven o'clock, the prosecutrix, Julia Shadid, a native of Assyria, who had been in this country about six months and who could not speak the English language, and who was engaged in traveling by railroad from town to town as a peddler of lace and other fabrics, purchased a ticket from Danforth, Illinois, to Springfield, Illinois, over the Illinois Central railroad. The prosecutrix should have left the train at Gilman and taken a train at that place for Springfield. She was, however, carried past the station at Gilman and did not leave the train until she reached the city of Paxton, where she arrived about nine o'clock of the same evening. On her arrival at Paxton she went into the railroad station, and to a hotel porter who represented the Middlecoff Hotel she showed her ticket and a note given her by the conductor of the train upon which she had arrived to the conductor of a return train, asking that she be taken back to Gilman, as she had been carried past that station by mistake. The porter inquired if she desired to go to a hotel, but she gave him to understand that she would wait at the station for the return train. The porter, after taking her to the ticket agent and showing him her ticket and the note from the conductor, returned to her the ticket and note and left her in the waiting room at the station. A young lady by the name of Anna Nowlin, who resided at Loda, was also in the station waiting for a friend to call for her with a carriage to take her to her home, and the two young women remained in the waiting room at the station until about 10:30 o'clock, when Miss Nowlin's friend called for her, and she left the Assyrian girl in the waiting room alone, apparently asleep. On the afternoon of the 9th of August the plaintiff in error Rardin went to Gilman and returned to Paxton on the same train upon which the prosecutrix arrived, and brought with him a quart of whisky and a

quart of wine. Upon the arrival of Rardin he was met at the station by his co-defendants, Newlin and Walker, and other friends, notably the witnesses Swanson and Lewis, who were called by the court upon the motion of the State's attorney. Plaintiffs in error and their friends remained in and about the station until after Miss Nowlin left, when plaintiff in error Newlin went into the waiting room and wakened the prosecutrix, picked up her suit-case and asked her if she did not want to go to a hotel, and informed her he would take her to one. He was apparently sober and was well dressed. The prosecutrix evidently believed him to be a hotel porter and followed him out of the waiting room and in the direction of the hotel, as she supposed. He went north, carrying her suit-case, she following him, along the Illinois Central railroad tracks to a street which led east, and he then turned east across the street and continued on until he came to an alley in the rear of the house of a Mr. Lewis. He then turned into the alley, past a pile of lumber, to near an old barn which stood upon the rear of the Lewis lot and which abutted upon said alley. When he started, Rardin, Walker, Lewis and Swanson followed him and the prosecutrix as far as the Smith lumber yard, which was located just north and a little west of said alley, where they waited until Newlin and the prosecutrix had passed into the alley, when they congregated on the street near the alley and some of them soon went into the alley. When Newlin and the prosecutrix reached the barn Newlin seized her. By this time she had become thoroughly alarmed and in broken English pleaded with Newlin to let her go. She soon commenced to scream and broke away from Newlin and started to run out of the alley. As she passed Rardin he either pushed or knocked her down, and she was then seized by Rardin and Walker. A pocket handkerchief was crowded into her mouth and she was held down upon the ground. At first she appears to have been paralyzed with fear and rendered unconscious by the

fall or blow she received. While upon the ground she was ravished by Walker and probably by Rardin and Newlin. She soon regained consciousness and got the handkerchief out of her mouth and by her screams and outcries aroused the people in the neighborhood, most of whom were in bed. When she regained her feet she ran to the Lewis home, crying and calling in her native tongue for help. Mrs. Lewis had retired but was aroused by the cries and went to her door and soon admitted the girl to her home. The parties who were in the alley followed the girl to the Lewis porch, where she had taken refuge. After she was admitted to the Lewis home she fell upon the floor with fright and fatigue, where she remained in a semi-unconscious condition until the police officers came. From the Lewis home she was taken to the Middlecoff Hotel by the police officers. On the way to the hotel she cried and moaned continually. The landlady and a lady guest took her to a room and quieted her as best they could. A physician was called later, and an examination of her person disclosed her right arm was badly wrenched, her breasts bruised, her abdomen scratched, her thighs bruised, and her private parts were torn and lacerated and her underclothing was stained and soiled. The plaintiffs in error Rardin and Walker fled from the town of Paxton on a train that passed through that place soon after twelve o'clock and were arrested at Rantoul the next morning, and the next forenoon Newlin left the State.

It is first urged that the evidence is not sufficient to sustain the verdict. The record is voluminous and is full of profanity and obscenity, mainly brought out on the examination, as witnesses, of the plaintiffs in error Rardin and Walker and the young men who were with them on the evening of August 9, or upon the examination of witnesses to whom the plaintiffs in error described, while in jail, what took place on the evening of August 9 from the time they left the station until the prosecutrix escaped from

them, and it would serve no useful purpose to defile the Reports of this court by repeating that language in this opinion. Suffice it to say that the testimony of the prosecutrix given upon the trial shows that the offense charged against plaintiffs in error was committed upon her while she was in the alley in the rear of the Lewis home. Her testimony on that subject is corroborated by her mental and exhausted physical condition at the time she was admitted to the Lewis home and by her physical injuries and the condition of her clothing after she arrived at the hotel, as testified to by Dr. Kelsheimer, who was called early on the morning of the 10th of August, and by three or more other physicians who made a physical examination of the prosecutrix soon thereafter; also by the fact that the plaintiffs in error were present at the time the prosecutrix was overcome and outraged, and by the admissions made by the plaintiffs in error to their rowdy companions and to their cellmates while in the county jail. From all these proven facts, without here setting them out in detail, we are of the opinion that the evidence introduced on the trial establishes the guilt of the plaintiffs in error of the crime charged against them, beyond all reasonable doubt.

The prosecutrix was a native of Assyria and had only been in this country six months prior to the trial and could not speak or understand the English language, and it was necessary that she be examined and testify upon the trial as a witness through an interpreter. The court called Elias Tayar, a merchant of the city of Bloomington, who was a native of Assyria, who had resided in this country eight years and who understood the English language and could translate the Assyrian language into the English and the English into the Assyrian language, who was duly sworn as an interpreter and the prosecutrix was sworn and examined as a witness through the said interpreter. It appeared that said Tayar was a distant relative of the prosecutrix,—that is, their great-great-grandfather was the same

person. Upon that fact being made to appear, the position was taken by counsel for plaintiffs in error that by reason of such relationship Tayar was incompetent to act as an interpreter, and an objection to his competency having been made and overruled, it is now urged that the court committed reversible error in permitting Tayar to act as an interpreter of the testimony of the prosecutrix. It is not claimed that Tayar was not competent to translate the Assyrian language into the English or the English into the Assyrian language, or that he was not fair and did not honestly and impartially interpret the questions propounded to the prosecutrix or her answers thereto, but the position of the plaintiffs in error is, that the relationship of the interpreter to the prosecutrix rendered him incompetent. The author of the article on Interpreters, in the English and American Encyclopedia of Law, (vol. 17, p. 30,) says: "It would evidently be improper for a court to appoint as interpreter one who would reasonably be expected to be unfair and biased in his translation of the testimony. A degree of discretion must, however, necessarily be vested in the trial court as to the person who shall be employed as an interpreter, and the exercise of such discretion will be reviewed only when it is shown that it has been the subject of abuse on the part of the trial court to the injury of one of the parties." And this court, in Chicago and Alton Railroad Co. v. Shenk, 131 Ill. 283, said, on page 285: "Some degree of discretion must be vested in the trial court as to the person who shall be employed as an interpreter, but that discretion ought not to be so exercised as to deprive a party altogether of the testimony of his witness, so long as an interpreter is offered against whom there is no legal objection." Tayar was not incompetent as a witness by reason of interest or otherwise, and could have been called and have testified to the body of the offense had he possessed knowledge upon that question. We are of the opinion he was competent to act as an