Deno cw. |
BY P. GRAY MEEK.
INK SLINGS.
—Good morning! Have you bought
that Liberty Bond yet? Tomorrow
your chance to do your bit will be
over.
—The Thanksgiving turkey has less
than a month to live, that is, if there
should be anybody with the price to
effect his decapitation.
When you read Ed. Vare's
statements you get a tolerably clear
idea of how the Kaiser feels when he
sees the Hindenburg line receding.
—Don’t give your children corn to
throw away on Hallowe’en night.
Give it to the chickens. This is no
time for waste, much as we deplore
the thought of depriving the little
folks of one feature of their annual
frolic.
—With Taft and Roosevelt and
Root all supporting a Democrat for
Mayor of New York city it would
seem that it isn’t so much a crime to
be a Democrat as some of our old
fashioned Republican friends imag-
ine it to be.
—Game old Bob Fitzsimmons took
the last count in Chicago on Satur-
day. Many a good fight was his in
his lifetime and his last was the gam-
est, but it was without avail for
pneumonia had him groggy before it
was diagnosed.
—Much of the industrial disorder
in this country would be ended in-
stantly if the government would only
make it plain that the same strong
hand that can take men away from
their homes to fight for it can put
men into the mills and mines to
work for it.
—Well, we have tasted the first bit-
ter cup of war’s sorrow. An Amer-
ican transport has been sunk and
many of our brave soldiers have gone
to heroe’s graves. Let us steel our-
selves for greater omnes. They are
certain to come and come closer home
than the sinking of the Antilles
brought them.
—It isn’t a far look into the
future of this country to see the
time when the two old parties will
be driven together to maintain the
balance of power against. the com-
bination of anarchists, I. W. W’s
and other opponents of law and
order which will attempt to steal in-
to control under the growing but mis-
guided Socialistic movement.
—Mr. Hoover declares that the
price of wheat is fixed and is going
to stay fixed, if it takes all the ma-
chinery of the government to keep it
so. And we believe Mr. Hoover
means what he says. Believing that’
there doesn’t seem to be much use in
holding wheat in granaries where it
is liable to be stolen, eaten up by rats
or destroyed if the barn burns down
or lose in weight when the price is
just as good right now as the govern-
ment will permit it to be next spring.
—Every farmer in Centre county
should breed every sow he has. Even
if he feels that he doesn’t have the
feed for an unusual number of little
pigs there will be a ready market for
all he can’t raise and at prices that
will be highly profitable. The coun-
try is crying for fats today and hogs
are the quickest medium through
which the demand can be supplied.
And we can’t have the hogs unless
we get the little pigs first. Don’t
butcher a sow this fall. Have her do
her bit. ‘
—The lady who went into a Belle-
fonte bakery a day or so ago to buy
her usual dozen of ginger cookies
found that the price is no longer ten
cents. It is fifteen now. Forthwith
she kept in style and recorded a vo-
ciferous kick and continued kicking
until she was politely informed that
the raise would not have been neces-
sary had she not advanced the price
of the eggs and butter that she has
been supplying this same bakery with
to forty-five cents. She didn’t see
the point, however, and is" probably
still hugging the delusion that it
ought to be all coming in and noth-
ing going out.
—Verily the country newspaper
that has character and courage and
ability enough to be anything else
than a molly coddle finds itself be-
tween the upper and nether millstone
quite often. To hark back to two in-
cidents last spring one very pro-Eng-
lish reader discontinued her subscrip-
tion because the “Watchman” was too
pro-German and she didn’t “like its
politics anyhow.” Almost in the same
mail with her misguided little epistle
came another from a pro-German
reader who couldn’t stand the paper
and longer because it was too pro-
English. Now comes a postal from
another who doesn’t want a paper in
his house which would publish a
Christian Science lecture, as the
“Watchman” did last week, and just
as the writer was reading the peevy
note of the fellow who couldn’ pass
up the Mother Eddy idea, if he didn’t
like it, in stepped a young friend
from Altoona who came to tell us
that in his boarding house in the
Mountain city there lives a man from
New York who knows nothing what-
ever of Centre county, yet he pre-
empts the “Watchman” the minute it
is delivered there because he says it
is “actually the best paper I ever
read.” You will pardon us, of course,
for being vain enough to believe that
the stranger from New York is cer-
tainly a little wider between the eyes
than two of them and surely has a
little more of the grace of God in his
heart than the third of the erstwhile
readers referred to.
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
NO. 42.
VOL. 62.
Penrose Denounces Government by
Murder.
We were hardly just to Senator
Penrose, last week, in stating that
the chances were in favor of his stick-
ing to the machine in the present
Philadelphia political muddle. He
has since revealed himself in unmis-
takable language. In an interview
made public on Monday morning of
this week he emphatically denounces
the unspeakable Vare machine and
condemns the atrocious Fifth ward
murdering methods. “Government
and party control by a contractor in
Philadelphia,” he declares, “has re-
solved itself into government by mur-
der. No greater shame could be in-
flicted upon this city, the cradle of
American liberty, than that at this
war crisis, when the United States is
engaged in a world struggle for de-
mocracy, the very shadow of Inde-
pendence hall should be polluted with
murder, foully done, in the interest
of contractor politics.”
Senator Penrose is the official head
of the Republican party of Pennsyl-
vania. The Senior Senator in Con-
gress by the favor of the voters of
that political faith and member of the
party National committee for the
State, his statement is ex cathedra
the voice of the party. In declaring
against murderous and fraudulent
methods, therefore, he absolves all
Republican voters from obligation to
support candidates of the party nom-
inated by fraud or force. Not only
in Philadelphia but in Pittsburgh and
other sections of the State these
methods have been employed by the
Vare-Brumbaugh machine to com-
pass the success of candidates of that
faction and in all such cases Senator
Penrose points the way to correct a
grave evil and rebuke a dangerous
crime. He will support the opposi-
tion ticket in Philadelphia as he
would in any other county.
The Philadelphia outrage is a crime
against the voters of the entire State.
It is an assertion of might against
right in every section of the Common-
wealth because it strengthens the
Vare-Brumbaugh machine in its un-
lawful purpose to dominate the whole
State for its selfish purposes. If it
shall succeed in Philadelphia it will
assert itself in the next session of the
Legislature with added force and
dominate every act of the General
Assembly. By an unholy alliance
with certain Democrats in the last
Legislature, corrective legislation
was defeated and the license to mur-
der was extended to the police force
of Philadelphia. The |, condition
which Senator Penrose deprecates
was the logical result of this misalli-
ance and the Senator deserves the ap-
probation of all good gitizens in set-
ting his face against it.
Change of Conditions Necessary.
In a letter of Lewis F. Swift, pres-
ident- of Swift & Co., the Chicago
packers, to the Federal Trade Com-
missioners, the fact is revealed that
the profits of that business during
the nine months of the present year
are greatly in excess of those of prev-
ious years. The reason for this, Mr.
Swift states, is “that values have
been advancing so rapidly and stead-
ily that between the time of the kill-
ing of the animal and the time of the
sale of the meat, considerable margin
had accumulated.” In other words
the packers have been carefully in-
creasing prices of stocks on hand and
compelling the consumers to pay, not
a legitimate profit, but “all the traffic
would bear.”
Mr. Herbert Hoover is probably
doing all he can to protect the con-
sumers from the cupidity of the pro-
ducers, but he is not measuring up to
his reputation. While hundreds of
people are suffering because it is im-
possible to procure sufficient nutri-
tious food, millionaire meat packers
have no right to that accumulation of
margin “between the slaughter of the
animal and the sale of the meat,” to
which Mr. Swift so complacently re-
fers. The packers have a right to a
fair profit on the goods they produce,
but in war times when patriotism
chould dominate cupidity the advan-
tage of the accumulations should go
to the consumer. That is to say,
goods in stock should be disposed of
at a fair margin over cost.
The very rich men of the United
States are not doing their share to-
ward bearing the expenses of this
world war for democracy against au-
tocracy. Thanks to the wisdom and
courage of President Wilson the rich
and poor are on an absolute equality
in supplying the army and navy with
men. In the Civil war the rich could
buy themselves out of service and
now they can’t. But there the equal-
ity ends. In England the rich freely
submitted to taxation as high as
eighty per cent. of their incomes but
in this country complaint is made
against a levy of sixty per cent and
even munition manufactories have
been caught defrauding the govern-
ment. In order to win the war for
democracy these conditions must be
changed.
BELLEFONTE, PA.. OCTOBER 26, 1917.
Russian Drones Make Absurd Plans.
|
do
work, and the Soldiers’ Delegates,
made up of men who never fight, have
undertaken, under the direction of
| German spies, to declare terms of
{peace for the belligerents in the
{ world war. One of the conditions ex-
| pressed by them is that Belgium shall
! be recompensed for losses from an in-
| ternational fund and another is the
| neutralization of the Suez and Pana-
{ma canals. They also demand that
| the German colonies lost to the Kai-
| ser’s empire shall be restored to Ger-
many. It is somewhat surprising
that they did not insist that Russia
shall be governed for all time by
| these drones in the international
hive.
The question of the administration
of the Panama canal has no place in
the peace negotiations which will ul-
timately terminate the great war.
| That highway of commerce was cre-
lated by the people of the United
States and with the assent of all na-
tions concerned the management of
it was fixed for all time in the hands
of the government of the United
States. The Suez canal is now as it
has always been neutral and it will
probably remain so not because per-
fidious Russians demand it but for
the reason that Great Britain which
owns it has chosen to pursue that pol-
icy with respect to it. Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Turkey have
no voice and will have no voice in the
matter.
The war was begun by Germany
for the thinly concealed purpose of
subduing Russia and if there are
enough traitors in Russia to compass
that result it is their affair. Some-
times we think it is hardly worth
while to waste lives and treasure to
prevent it. But neither of the other
belligerent allies will pay tribute to
the unholy rapacity of the German
Kaiser and the peace terms that will
obtain when the war ends will be
agreed upon by those who are and
have been faithful to their obliga-
tions of civilization and to each oth-
er. , There are men in Russia who
leagues to save them from German
slavery but the other sort may make
the enterprise too costly.
——Mayor Smith characterized the
Fifth ward murder as deplorable and
Senator Vare says it was unfortu-
nate. The average citizen calls it
atrocious, however, and will express
his resentment at the ballot box.
Plain Duty of Workmen.
Every day we see the splendid spec-
tacle of the flower of the young man-
hood of the country offering their
‘lives on the altar of patriotism. The
pay of the soldier is thirty dollars a
month or thereabouts, and the penal-
ty is months of obedient service with
always present the chance of death.
But the soldiers don’t strike for high-
er wages or shorter hours or easier
conditions. They - aren’t built that
way. They have entered the most
hazardous service of the country, not
to promote personal interests, not to
extort personal advantage, but to con-
serve the interests of the country, to
guarantee the safety of the State and
to make sure that democracy shall
continue in the world.
In the prosecution of a war muni-
tions are as essential to success as
men. At the outset of the present
war if Russia had been equipped with
war materials as well as she was pro-
vided with men the drive begun by
Grand Duke Nicholas would have end-
ed in the capture of Berlin two years
ago. But because the Russian force
soon exhausted its supply of arms
and ammunition and through perfidy
or poverty in resources, there was no
renewal. Russia became an absurd
figure in the war equation. The
troops took punishment valiantly and
the officers revealed the highest order
of military skill and ability. But they
couldn’t fight without implements of
war to fight with and became victims
of treachery.
This country is now practically in
the same situation. We have the
most courageous soldiers and the
most capable officers in the field. But
they can achieve nothing without
arms and munitions. To supply these
it is necessary that the industrial life
of the country be operated to its full
capacity. Mechanics and laborers
employed in supplying these equip-
ments have no more right to strike
than the soldiers in the trenches.
Every line of industry is involved.
The iron and steel worker is as im-
portant as the powder maker and the
coal miner as essential as the gun-
maker. Every element of the indus-
trial life must be kept in motion and
the workman who falters is as con-
temptible as the soldier who runs
away.
You haven’t much time left in
which to buy Liberty Bonds but it
doesn’t take long if your heart is in
the right place and your pocket-book
properly equipped.
The Council of Workmen in Rus- |
composed of men who never
deserve the friendly aid of their col- ||
Putting Harry Keller at a Disad-
vantage.
Governor Brumbaugh has appoint-
ed Harry Keller Esq., of this place, a
member of the commission to locate
the new institution for inebriates
which = Pennsylvania contemplates
building. It is an honor, worthily be-
stowed. Bellefonte has no citizen of
more splendid character or more con-
scientious scruples about right doing.
But the distinguished gentleman who
wears Charley Chaplin mustachios
for eyebrows and presides over the
destiny of this great Commonwealth !
has picked a good man for the wrong
job. Why, bless your soul, Martin,
Harry Keller knows about as much
about inebriates as you profess to
know about who signed your name to
the telegram to General Clement.
Ever since he discarded the milk bot-
tle of infancy he has been a connois-
seur in soft drinks with ginger ale as
a specialty, but never to the knowl-
edge of mortal man has Harry Keller
tasted red liquor. Never has he sat
on the side of the bed on the morning
after the night before straining ears
for the clink of the ice in the pitcher
as the bell hop comes down the hall
and all the while staring straight in-
to the face of old Col. R. E. Morse.
The only kind of “souse” he has ever
known is the kind more polite folks
call pigs feet jelly. Mr. Keller has
never “seen things,” though he did
come pretty near it once when he saw
a chance for Geo. A. Jenks to be elect-
ed Governor, and a man with so little
of the inebriate’s perspective is being
commissioned to do something he
can't when he is asked to select a site
with the proper atmosphere for a
home for them.
It requires a discrimination more
subtle thran that stimulated by ginger
ale to discern the environment best
suited to taper off in.
Mr. Keller will give the Common-
wealth conscientious and intelligent
service of course, but in this peculiar
mission an otherwise splendid judg-
ment certainly has its limitations.
He will be groping in the dark be-
cause he has never had an “eye
opener.”
‘#——Witen you get this issue of the
“Watchman” don’t read the outside
pages and throw it aside thinking you
have read everything interesting, be-
cause there is something of interest
to all on every page. For instance on
the second page is a very timely ar-
ticle on “The Effect of Bacteria Upon
Milk.” The third page is filled with
country correspondence and just
bristling with interesting items. On
the sixth page is an article telling of
a “22 Ounce Loaf of Bread for 10
Cents,” and other interesting matters
while on the seventh page is a series
of letters from Elliott Lyon Morris,
now in training for an aviator in
France. :
A dispatch from Harrisburg
states that during the month of Sep-
tember state policemen had arrested
392 persons for automobile speeding.
Troop A, of Greensburg, led with 193
arrests, and inasmuch as the squad
located at Pleasant Gap belongs to
Troop A it is quite easy to see how
the troop score is so high. Troop B
at Wyoming had 62 arrests, Troop C
at Pottsville 69 and Troop D at But-
ler 66. :
——John M. Keichline is again in
the political arena, having announc-
ed himself as an independent candi-
date for tax collector of Bellefonte
borough in competition with J. Kenne-
dy Johnston, the regularly nominated
Democratic candidate, and Harry
Badger, the Republican candidate.
——Mayor Smith, of Philadelphia,
rode a hundred miles or so to answer
Senator Penrose and when he regch-
ed the spot changed his mind. An ar-
my once “marched up the hill and
then marched down again.”
——Anyway the Kaiser will find
little comfort in the sale of Liberty
Bonds. If the volume sold is not as
great as sanguine expectations figur-
ed it will be great enough to accom-
plish the purpose.
A Philadelphia hotel charges
five cents for two lumps of sugar “in
the name of patriotism.” That hotel
manager would probably have stolen
the silver from Judas in the name of
honesty.
——The victory of democracy is
going to cost a vast sum but it will
be worth the price, whereas the tri-
umph of autocracy would cost a great
deal more and wouldn’t be worth any-
thing.
——Senator Vare is very indig-
nant, not because crime was commit-
ted, but because it was found out.
The Vare wealth .is a fountain of
political corruption.
—The “Watchman” this week mail-
ed another contribution of $50 to the
mess fund of Troop L, the Boal Ma-
chine Gun Troop and the Hospital
corps.
! Germany’s Idea of Freedom of the
. Seas.
| From the Philadelphia North American.
Of all the nations of the earth Ger-
| many has least cause to complain of
| interference with her maritime devel-
opment. In shipbuilding and over-
seas commerce she had attained a
{ commanding position. In 1913 her for-
‘eign trade exceeded $5,000,000,000 in
i value; during the less than half a
| century of the Empire’s existence its
| merchant steamship tonnage had
| grown from 82,000 to more than
i 3,000,060.
{ Before the war German lines not
i only traversed the great ocean high-
ways, but carried the German flag to
the remotest parts of the earth, and
linked every considerable port to
Hamburg and Bremen; and never had
a hand been raised to restrict or chal-
lenge Germany’s right to carry on
this campaign of peaceful conquest.
She had all the world in which to
trade, all the seas and narrows and
harbors were hers on equal terms
with every other nation. An Ameri-
can traveler has told of sitting on a
club veranda in Singapore and count-
ing at one time 25 funnels of a single
German line in the roadstead. When
he went to Borneo it was in a Ger-
man ship. From Singapore to Siam
he sailed under the same flag; to Hon-
kong, to Java, to Australia the jour-
ney was the same—in a German
steamship, carrying British mails be-
tween British ports.
So “freedom of the seas was not
an issue before August, 1914. The
only candid avowal of the German
idea we have found is that of Dr.
Dernburg: “The aim of Germany is
to have the seas, as well as the nar-
rows, kept open permanently for the
free use of all nations in times of
war as well as in times of peace.”
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Insurance.
From the New York World.
Only from a few devotees of the
greatly over-worked pension system
was there any opposition to the pas-
sage by Congress of the Soldiers’ and
Sailors’ Insurance bill, and that was
soon swept aside. The measure marks
a new departure in government poli-
cy.
It is not left to the future to pro-
vide for the men who may be crip-
pled or incapacitated in the service
of the United States or whose depen-
dents may suffer through the Jr
A uniform system of insurance his
been created by which at very low
‘cost all men of the army and navy
may insure themselves and secure
regular allowances to their families
or dependents.
No private insurance company could
or would offer such advantageous
terms. In its generous treatment of
the men bearing arms, the govern-
ment virtually adds to their pay by
doubling the contribution they bind
themselves to make regularly for the
benefit of their families or relatives.
One of the greatest benefits derived
from the new law will be that the
very low rate of insurance by the gov-
ernment will hold good indefinitely
after the termination of the war.
It is not really war insurance, but
service insurance that has been pro-
vided for hundreds of thousands of
men in the army and navy. To the
fund from which it is to be paid the
people of the United States will glad-
ly contribute their share in loyalty to
the men called to the colors.
ee H——
Feeding Our Allies.
From the Johnstown Leader.
The chances are many Americans
are puzzled every time Food Control-
ler Hoover issues a statement urging
us to cut out all waste. People are
apt to think with the bountiful crops
this year we should have an abun-
dance. :
But—one of the vital needs of the
time is that America should provision
France and England. Even in normal
times England does not raise enough
food to feed himself. And these are
far from normal times. And a large
part of the food growing country of
France has been temporarily taken
away.
France and England need food, and
we should furnish it. We can, if we
will use our suplies here at home
with reasonable prudence.
Why is it our imperative duty to
help feed our allies? Because our al-
lies are holding the lines in France
and Flanders while we make ready to
take up the fight for civilization and
for liberty. Only by their work can
we have the necessary time to pre-
pare. Every battle they fight is a
battle for America.
We are giving them all the money
they need to supply their armies. We
must now give them food to feed both
the armies and the folks back home.
The Germans and the Austrians are
rapidly approaching empty stomachs.
We simply can’t afford to let the Eng-
lish and French have any starvation
problems on their hands.
Eggsactly.
From the Pittsburgh Gazette Times.
With 250,000,000 more eggs in stor-
age than at this time last year and
only a small export demand, the price
is—well, you know what it is. That
shows how the law of supply and de-
mand can be made to work when it
is in capable hands.
And It Didn’t Come.
From the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times.
November 1st is the date set for com-
plete government food control. And
October 1st was the date sugar was to
come down under federal supervision.
: —
SPAWLS FROM THE KE STONE. °
—“I give everything to iny wife,” says
William Voris, of Pottsgrove a his wil
probated in the office of John Carr, reg-
ister of wills, on Tuesday. is one of
the shortest wills on record
—-Struck in the head by ‘ay bullet
as he read in his home. is Kapp,
Hampden township, Cum: 1 county,
is unconscious and not «x: {d to re-
cover.
—The Haws Refractories, : ited in the
Lewistown Narrows, manufa ured their
first brick on Tuesday. The . timate ca-
pacity of the plant will be 6.000 brick
every twenty-four hours. Only two ma-
chines are in service as yet, with a capac-
ity of 10,000 brick a day.
—Mrs. Frank E. Childs, of Lewistown,
has collected and shipped 478 glasses of
home-made jelly to the boys of Mifflin
county now in training at Camp Meade,
Md. Mr. and Mrs. Childs have given their
only children, two boys, to the service,
one to the arniy and one to the navy.
—S. Taylor North, aged 64 years, for-
mer Congressman from the Twenty-sev-
enth district and prominent in Punxsu-
tawney politics fer over forty years, died
at his home at Punxsutawney last Fri-
day. Mr. North, who served as a member
of Congress from 1914 to 1916, was a for-
mer member of the State Legislature,
—The death of John F. Kuhn, of New
Oxford, Franklin county, revealed the
fact that he had accumulated a fortune
that will likely amount to $25,000. He had
hid in his clothes over $6,500 in cash and
had bank certificates for over $13,000. He
owned a home where he had lived alone
for many years. The greater part of the
fortune will go to his seven children.
—~Sixteen year old John W. Carl, a stu-
dent at Girard college, Philadelphia, from
Towanda, Pa., was shot and killed during
the military drill at the college in a pecu-
liar accident on Monday. Dr. F. Greena-
walt, consulting surgeon at the college,
who examined the boy’s body, said a bul-
let or a piece of brass from Carl’s own ri-
fle struck a stone wall, rebounded and
pierced his heart.
—Herbert W. Crislip, of Johnstown, whe
sustained the loss of two arms and other
injuries in an accident in the yards of the
Johnstown & Stoneycreek ailroad com-
pany, in February, 1917, has filed an ac-
tion against the company for $50,000 dam-
ages for his injurles. Mr. Crislip in his
statement alleges that the company was
negligent because it permitted to be used
couplings and drawheads that were out-
of-date.
—Iva Mountain, the pretty Westmore-
land county school teacher, who in De-
cember, 1913, defended herself from 16-
year-old Perrin Barger, with a red hot pe-
ker while with the other hand she whip-
ped him with a stick and who later went
to jail for a night rather than pay a jus-
tice’s fine, has won her case in the Super-
ior court. The court ordered the judg-
ment of the lower court reversed and the
case remitted for further consideration.
—Joseph Jacobs, of Lewistown, recent-
ly plowed out thirty-six copperhead
snakes, ranging from three feet to eight
inches, while plowing in his peach orchard
near Denholm. The reptiles had evident-
ly retired for the winter season as they
were rolled in a ball and came to the sur-
face hissing and striking with their long
forked feelers. The entire thirty-six were
killed, thus. breaking up a colony that
would have propagated several hundred
by next season.
—United States Marshal Smith, of Har-
risburg, on Tuesday night arrested Sam-
uel B. Shearer, at Chambersburg, on
charges of complicity in the alleged
wrecking of the Lemasters bank some
months ago. He was held in $10,000 bail
by the United States commissioner.
Shearer was interested in the McConnells-
burg and Fort Louden trolley line. The
cashier of the bank loaned sums of mon-
ey to the trolley promoters without knowl-
edge of the directors, it was said.
—According to the Sunbury local draft
board, William F. Lyon, of that place, has
an income of more than $100 a month,
owns an automobile and does not work,
but the draft board for the middle judi-
cial district came across Lyon’s plea for
exemption from military service because
he has a dependent mother. Lyon made a
trip to Camp Meade last week and said on
his return to Sunbury, according to the
local board, that it was similar to hell
The Sunbury board asks the district
board to investigate Lyon thoroughly.
—A feat in electrical engineering was
accomplished late last Thursday when the
Millersburg Light, Heat and Power com-
pany completed the stringing of a 22,-
000 volt cable across the Susquehanna riv-
er at Halifax, Dauphin county. Officials
of the company say it is the longest in the
State. The cable is put up in two seec-
tions, one 1,800 feet and the other 1,200
feet. When the work was finished Wil-
liam Crawshaw, in charge, swung across
the river on the cable in an ordinary line-
man’s belt. The cable rests on two 55-
foot steel towers.
—Charles Gorkins, of Lewistown, has
been relegated from polite society by the
decree of that little bushy-tailed animal
known to the vulgar as a “skunk.” Gor-
kins drives a grocery delivery truck and
in making late delivery in the outskirts
of town recently he ran down a small ani-
mal that showed only for an instant in
the rays of the headlights. Being a hu-
mane young man, Gorkins left the machine
and picked the little sufferer up by the
tail intending to remove it to a place
where it could be given relief. Gorkins
says, “I never dreamed the pesky critter
was loaded,” but it was and as the result
he has been compelled to bury his cloth-
ing, fumigate the machine and it will be
several days before he can again handle
groceries and provisions with any assur-
ance that his patrons will not blame him
for resorting to cologne to kill the chick-
ery in the coffee.
—A jury in Common Pleas court,
Northumberland county, Judge Moser sit-
ting, last Thursday awarded Jacob Sebas-
tian $850 and his son, Peter Sebastian,
$6,425 against the Philadelphia and Read-
ing Coal and Iron company for injuries
the latter received while at work in the
mines. According to the plaintiff’s state-
ment Jacob Sebastian in his own right
claimed $5,000 damages and as father and
next friend of Peter Sebastian claimed
$20,000 due the son as the result of inju-
ries suffered August 4th, 1913, when the
young man, who was employed by the
Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Irom
company was struck by the door of a mine
car which Yesulted in an injury to his
spine and the paralysis of his right arm.
The accident occurred at the Locust Gap
coiiierly and is alleged to have been the
result of negligence in properly lighting
the gangway to the mine.