Xf the schools and hospitals of
Pennsylvania don’t soon get the mon-
ey that’s coming to them from the
State they’ll have to take Charley
Snyder’s advice and move to some
other State.
— There has been no announcement
in support of or denying the surmise,
that some of us have, that President
Harding might be eating off the White
House mantle as a result of his re-
cent attempt at horse-back riding.
—We are hoping that Secretary
Hughes will not give an inch in his
plan for naval reduction. If Japan or
any other country is really sincere in
the desire to give up all kinds of war-
fare it doesn’t matter whether she
has a million boats or none.
— Lieutenant Governor Beidleman,
who is an avowed candidate for Gov-
ernor, is pleading for “economy and
efficiency” in the administration of
State affairs. He has nothing on the
rest of us in that. We have been do-
ing it for years and Eddie Beidleman
seems to have gotten his ear to the
ground only when he decided he would
like to be the captain general of the
State himself.
— Gone are the days of a plug hat,
sack coat and yellow shoes in Phil-
jpsburg. Having successfully launch-
ed a half million dollar hotel with
French chefs and caparisoned bell-
hops the renaissance is on aright
and to our wondering and covetous
eyes are held up palaces and cottages
dotting driveways, boulevards and
courts bearing such names as Drury,
Berkley, Devonshire, Hampton, Mor-
timer and Duncannon. Curtiss is the
name of the new Aladdin who has
Philipsburg seeing the town-beautiful
and his plans are ambitious enough to
make it such.
Tn six counties in Pennsylvania
the Democrats have even lost the dis-
tinction of being in the minority. In
Bradford, Forest, Indiana, Lawrence,
Tioga and Warren we have dropped
back to third place on the ticket and
in McKean, where one Asher Johnson
promised so much and did so little,
we came within seventy-five votes of
losing ' our long established position.
Truly the works of our great reorgan-
izers are living long after them, for
paraphrasing the remark of an old
Sugar Valley Democrat: “Palmer
and McCormick must be dead, we
haven’t heard anything about them
for so long.”
The outstanding bravery of Col.
Whittlesey thrilled all America when
it learned of his dramatic defiance of
the Hun hordes that surrounded his
«30st Battalion;” but Coli “Whittlesey:
is a suicide now. Ordinarily taking
one’s own life is moral cowardice, but
who is there that will say that Col.
Whittlesey was a coward because he
threw himself into the sea while en
route to Havana a few days ago?
Never can such opprobrium attach to
his memory. The strain and waste of
war, the disappointment over the fail-
ure of what he fought for to material-
ize must have broken the indomitable
spirit of the man and his mind as
well.
— “Vogue” is the name of a new
theatrical production that Parisians
are raving over. It is a story of Par-
adise and in one scene there are eighty
girls on the stage whose total vest-
ments weigh only forty-six pounds
and most of that is accounted for by
the beads they wear. In the Garden
of Eden scene Eve appears carrying
an apple and wearing her hair uncoil-
ed. And in Paris the only criticism
of that scene is as to the color of the
actress’ hair. Hers is golden, where-
as Paris feels outraged because it be-
lieves Adam’s Eve was a brunette. It
is just like Paris to quibble over the
color of Eve’s hair and pass up the
neglect of the actress to wear even
the proverbial fig leaf.
—We observe that Mr. James C.
Isaminger, sports editor of the North
American, would not be surprised to
see Hugo Bezdek “restored to a man-
agerial post in the big leagues.”
Which is to say that Bezdek, once the
very successful pilot of the Pirates
might go back to professional base-
ball. It is a possibility, of course,
but not a probability. Bezdek and
Dreyfuss may have had a misunder-
standing, as Isaminger intimates,
prior to his leaving Pittsburgh, but
we are inclined to the belief that if
manager Bezdek and president Drey-
fuss were a bit out of tune that was
only an incidental in his decision to
give up professional baseball. Bez-
dek is an altruist. Today the great
soul of him is in daily communion
with three thousand men in the mak-
ing at The Pennsylvania State Col-
lege. He is not the football coach at
State, as the term is generally ap-
plied by the sports writers of our
metropolitan papers. Bezdek is head
of the department of physical educa-
tion, with a chair on the faculty, and
the greatest opportunity to pioneer in
the development of strong bodies for
sound minds that is presented by any
college or university in America.
Just now he is much in the limelight
as the pilot of State’s invincible foot-
ball team, but that glory is epheme-
ral. The ultimate in his work has no
such objective as the frenzied acclaim
of football crowds. It is something
that will bring strong bodied, sound
minded, four-square men out of our
colleges to take and hold their places
among our best types of citizenship.
No, we think Mr. Isaminger is wrong,
Bezdek will never go back to commer-
cialized sport.
Ny
EN
mr
NY
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 66.
BELLEFO
NTE, PA., DECEMBER 2
, 1921.
NO. 4
“Who Got the $200,000,0002”
The esteemed Philadelphia Record
states that “during the past four
years the State has collected from the
tax payers over two hundred million
dollars. It is all gone, too, since it is
admitted that there is not in the
Treasury enough to pay current obli-
gations,” and asks “where has it
gone?” The equally esteemed Grange
News, official organ of the Pennsyl-
vania State Grange, has given an
answer in part. Within that time the
expenses of the Department of Pub-
lic Education have multiplied from
$53,000 a year to $417,000 a year.
Other departments have been equal-
ly profligate and the money has been
figuratively “eaten up” by the pi-
rates in control of the State govern-
ment.
Upon assuming control of the aud-
iting department of the State last
May the present Auditor General
dropped from the pay roll of that de-
partment twenty highly paid em-
ployees, because they were not need-
ed to conduct the business of the de-
partment. It may safely be estimat-
ed that these twenty beneficiaries of
a profligate system drew $40,000 a
year. The Banking department,
which, during the administration of
Governor Pattison was administered
by half a dozen competent men, now
affords employment to scores of po-
litical pensioners. The Insurance De-
partment is quite as extravagant, and
the Highway Department is simply
a reservoir of spoils. In the State
Department and the Treasury Depart-
|
|
|
|
i
'
1
i
ment highly paid employees are fall- |
ing over each other.
These extravagances account for
the expenditure of two hundred mil-
lion dollars in four years and they
have been made possible by the fail-
ure to publish the facts and the folly
of the voters who have closed their
leyes to the wickedness about them.
Some of the money has been lost
through the embezzlement of em-
ployees and some waasted in the
maintenance of party “lame ducks.”
But all that money is gone and much
i
|
|
|
more, for the Treasury is empty and
bills to the amount of forty or fifty
million dollars are due and unpaid.
And the robbers responsible for it all
expect the people to renew their fran-
chises to graft at the next election.
They feel confident that “there are
four more years of good stealing,” in
Pennsylvania.
eee AA
That magnificent educational
system which Governor Sproul prom-
ised the public seems to have been
submerged in expense bills.
[E——
Corn and Coal for Fuel.
Some of the leading newspapers of
the country are criticizing those far-
mers in the West who are using their
redundant corn crops for fuel. The
Wall Street Journal for example,
says that “when corn gets so cheap
and coal so dear that farmers find it
necessary to convert the grain into
fuel instead of bacon and beef, we
have a striking illustration of the
present maladministration of prices
and service.” The New York World
adds “when food is burned for fuel
the mind flies to Vienna, to Petrograd,
to Warsaw, to river towns on the Vol-
ga, where millions of people are fac-
ing the prospect of privation at best,
starvation for many, and where
helpfully use that ‘fuel’ for food.”
But all this suggestion of philan-
thropic work is beside the question.
No farmer uses corn for fuel because
of a desire to lessen the food supply
of the world. He burns corn for the
reason that he can’t afford to buy coal.
The National Secretary of Agricul-
ture, who may be presumed to have
exact knowledge of the subject, esti-
mates that a ton of corn contains al-
most the same number of heat units
as a ton of average coal and when a
farmer is unable to get more than
twenty cents a bushel for corn he
consults his own interests by using it
as fuel instead of paying fifteen dol-
lars a ton for coal, which is about the
price of anthracite
west.
The blame for the “striking illus-
tration of the maladministration of
prices and service” is not upon the
farmers. It is more on the coal pro-
ducers and upon such public servants
as increase the price of coal by put-
ting taxes upon the products of the
mines in order to create a reputation
for “magnificent achievement” as
Governor of a State. The tax levied
on anthracite coal by the last Legis-
lature of Pennsylvania, if affirmed by
the Supreme court of the State will
add, it is estimated, $20,000,000 a
year to the value, or rather the mar-
ket price of the products of the
mines of Pennsylvania, and if the far-
mers are obliged to burn corn in or-
der to avoid a share of this expense
it is not their fault.
rr ———————
— Just as other nations are pre-
paring to scrap navies Holland is
starting to build war ships.
“bigotry and personal ma
|
Proposition of Hughes Futile. !
We have little faith in either the
wisdom or sincerity of the Hearst
newspapers. But even as a blind pig
sometimes finds an acorn the New
York American may occasionally
stumble upon a truth and for good
purpose or bad, express it. For ex-
ample, in commenting upon the prop-
osition to scrap certain war ships in
agreement with corresponding de-
crease of the navies of Great Britain
and Japan, the New York American
says that “the sole power of the navy
is in the hands of Congress and the
Senate and the House jointly have the
sole authority to say what the size
and strength of the navy shall be.”
This is literally true. Any treaty
regulation of the subject would be fu-
tile.
In view of this undisputable fact
the proposition of Secretary of State
Hughes to decrease the naval strength
of the government by treaty and the
more absurd suggestion of President
Harding that the result be obtained
by a “gentleman’s agreement” is a
waste of energy and time. It is pos-
sible, of course, that Congress might
be prevailed upon to ratify such a
treaty or agreement, or that the peo-
ple of the country might acquiesce in
such a treaty as they have done for a
century in the treaty made during the
administration of James Monroe, lim-
iting the number of war ships on the
great lakes. But if the opposition
were influenced by prejudice, as the
opposition to Woodrow Wilson was in- |
fluenced, that would be impossible. |
We sincerely hope that the Limita-
tions Conference will come to an.
agreement which will result in the de- |
crease of expenses of government. |
Taxes are already burdensome and the
signs indicate higher levels unless ex- |
penses of government are decreased.
But the scrapping of the navy pro-
posed by Hughes will neither suffi-
ciently reduce expenses nor serve the
purpose of preventing future wars,
both of which desirable results might
have been obtained by ratifying the
Versailles treaty and the covenant of
the League of Nations. The parti
ral malice of
publican leaders in the United States
Senate have fastened heritages of
evil upon the people of the United
States. :
— In 1900 the per capita tax in
Pennsylvania was $2.77. In 1919 it
had increased to about $7, and is still |
multiplying. Unless the pirates in
control are stopped bankruptcy is in- |
evitable.
“Turn the Rascals Out.”
Whenever the Republican machine
leaders in Pennsylvania feel that it
is necessary to “pull the wool” over
the eyes of the credulous voters, they
make some sort of promise of reform. i
Several years ago when the capitol
graft exposures had aroused the peo- |!
ple somewhat the promise of reform |
was made with a flourish of trumpets |
and an Efficiency Commission created,
with Harry S. McDevitt, Governor
Sproul’s secretary, as chairman. Mr. i
McDevitt, a very capable and at that,
time a very sincere young newspaper :
reporter, spent months in investiga- |
tion and finally recommended changes
in the administrative machinery of
the State which might have worked
! important reforms. i
American relief workers could so |
But nothing was done in the direc- :
' tion of adopting his recommendations i
“to another until upon the inauguration !
i
at the time. His report, revealed to |
the machine leaders that he was al
young man to be reckoned with and |
instead of adopting his suggestions |
they adopted him, and he was advanc-
ed by easy stages from one soft snap |
of Governor Sproul he was appointed |
“private secretary to the Governor,” |
in the middle
| member of it and increased years and
: fairs have added to his capacity for
“the interest of the long suffering pub-
' lic. His associates on the Commission |
a confidential office of much influence |
and importance. One of his predeces-
sors in the office, many years ago, be-
ing asked what are the duties of the
private secretary said he was expect-
ed to “black the Governor’s boots and
write his messages.” Of late years
the first obligation of three-quarters
of a century ago has been eliminated.
But we have little faith in the prom-
ise of reform contained in the ap-
pointment of this new “Efficiency
Commission.” Mr. McDevitt is a
multiplied experience in public af-
servic .. But he is more likely to use
his additional information for the ben-
efit of his associates in office than in
are not of a type to inspire confidence
either, and “taking one consideration
with another” we are inclined to be-
lieve that the new Efficiency Commis-
sion is a delusion and a snare. The
way to get reform is to “turn the ras-
cals out.”
— Japan also agrees to the naval
scrapping proposition but continues to
build war ships. Probably the Mika-
do intends to make the scrapping a
great event.
san
of the Re- ©
Our Tax Heavy School Department.
The Grange News, the official organ
of the State Grange of Pennsylvania,
indulges in some significant and seem-
ingly just criticism of the State De-
partment of Public Instruction, in its
current issue. The News states that
within two years the number of per-
sons on the pay-roll of the Depart-
ment has increased from twenty-sev-
en to one hundred and forty-six and
the salary total from $53,000 to $417,
000, annually. This considerable
amount does not include charges for
maintenance, supplies, traveling ex-
penses and hotel bills. It covers the
salaries only, which in most cases
have been largely increased since the
induction of Dr. Thomas E. Finegan
into the office of superintendent.
Under Dr. Nathan C. Schaeffer's
administration of the department, for
example, there were three stenogra-
phers on a salary of $1000.00 each,
whereas there is now a “Bureau of
Stenographers” comprising sixty-
four operatives ranging in salaries
from $900.00 to $3000.00 a year. In
other branches of the department
similar extravagances are shown to
exist with the result that so keen and
intelligent an observer of events as
our esteemed contemporary is brought
to the opinion that grave abuses upon
the public are being perpetrated and
that the department has “run to bu-
reaus, supervisors, specialists, ex-
perts and statisticians” to an extent
that has made it “top-heavy.”
The criticism coming on the heels
of an exposure that vast sums of
money appropriated by the Legisla-
ture for educational purposes have
not been paid, should arouse the peo-
ple of the State to action. For some
years the schools of the Common-
wealth have been hampered in their
operations because of lack of funds
to make necessary improvements. In
some cases teachers have not been
paid promptly for their services and
in many cases it has been impossible
to provide schools with essentials be-
no funds available.
PR ho
salaries ave “be
and cheerfully.
,
Among other developments in
the postal service since Willie Hays
| assumed control of the Department is
a vastly increased number of robber-
ies.
te dee
Charles Hedding Rowland.
Truly has Philipsburg suffered a
great loss in the death of the Hon.
Charles H. Rowland. He would have
been an asset to any community and
when his home town strikes its bal-
ance for many years to come it will
know more than it can possibly feel
today how great the loss has been.
It will not be the development of a
great mining company that will stand
as his lasting memorial, nor the ma-
jestic theatre that bears his name, nor
the solution of the housing problem
in that town, nor his service to us in
Congress. It will be just what he was
long before smiling fortune laid rich-
es in his lap and made those material
accomplishments possible. It will be
the big heart, the unfailing friendship,
the cheerfulness, the human touch he
had for his fellows. Those were his
great attributes. They paved his way
to success and they have left an im-
press on the lives of those in contact
with him that will be imperishable
when his monuments in industry have
all crumbled and been forgotten.
— President Harding is back-pedal-
ing fast on his tentative proposal for
an “Association of Nations.” Those
already in the League of Nations
don’t propose to join any round about
plan to scrap the League and then,
too, there are some “bitter enders” in
Washington who think his plan is
just another name for a League.
— An agreement in principle
| without concurrence in detail is not
likely to lead to anything and Japan
and Great Britain show signs of dis-
agreement on the plans of Secretary
Hughes for limitation of armament.
———————————
——The question of a treaty or
gentleman’s agreement is compara-
tively unimportant at the present
stage of the conference for one thing
or the other.
e————— ly ————
Premier Briand’s speech made
| a profound impression on the public
| mind but Premier Lloyd George, who
is some talker, will have the last in-
ning.
— Tax payers are beginning to
count the cost and that indicates a
beginning of the end of the present
profligate party bosses.
——————— Ar ——————
— It doesn’t matter much how
many battleships are scrapped if
plenty aerial torpedoes are supplied.
an ———— A —————
——Subseribe for the “Watchman.”
Scylla
se
{ “It Ain’t All Honey.”
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Governor Sproul has appointed the
members of the commission author-
| ized by the last session of the Assem-
bly to recommend a plan for the reor-
ganization of the State government.
It consists of two members of each
chamber of the Assembly, Senators
. Woodward and Smith, and Represen-
tatives McCraig and Flynn; and three
| citizens, Mrs. John O. Miller, chair-
i man of the League of Women Voters;
| Leonard P. Fox, of the State Cham-
ber of Commerce, and Harry S. Mc-
Devitt, secretary to the Governor and
chairman of the former commission
on Economy and Efficiency.
That is a practical commission. Its
members have all been in first-hand
contact with the workings of the State
i government. It is to be expected,
' therefore, that its recommendations
| will be of a practical nature. They
| will need to be. They will need to
| specify names, dates and places if
| they are to get anywhere. The job of
| making any impression on the Gener-
al Assembly of the Commonwealth of
| Pennsylvania in the interest of sim-
plifying and improving the State gov-
ernment is no sinecure. Because, take
it by and large, the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylva-
nia has delicate sensibilities when it
comes to making changes in the State
government. It is fairly well satis-
fied with the State government. That
is to say, the men who tell most of its
members how to vote are pretty well
satisfied that they have about all the
jobs under the State government they
are likely to get, and they are decid-
edly averse to having any of their
present arrangements disturbed.
So the commission has a tidy task
on its hands. If it makes harmless
recommendations, that is to say, rec-
ommendations which involve no di-
vorcement from jobs, nobody will see
having existed, since it will have
shirked the larger aspeets of its prob-
lem. If it makes recommendations
which involve reorganization of the
departments of government along sci-
entific lines, which would inevitably
let out some of our present public
| servants, it is going to be in trouble.
Wherefore, i OI
81d
one will wateh
he methods
ar safely 5 he pres U
3 and Charybdis. ne thing is
fairly evident, and that is, that unless
equally heroic tactics are adopted, the
success that attended the fabled Ulys-
ses’ performance of the same task
will not be theirs.
The Propaganda Mill.
From the Philadelphia Record.
“Propoganda Pours Out of Confex-
ence,” runs a headline, which conveys
,a bit of information that every ob-
servant newspaper reader must have
noticed for himself in seeking to fol-
low the proceedings of the Washing-
ton gathering with a fair degree of
intelligence. There is so little real
news, and such a mass of stuff sup-
posed to reflect the views of the Brit-
ish, French, Japanese, Chinese and
other delegates, reinforced by a lot of
half-baked twaddle sent out by Amer-
ican correspondents containing their
own not particularly valuable opin-
ions, that the person who tries to find
a grain of fact in this mass of chaff
becomes discouraged in the search
and is disposed to chuck the whole
business until some positive and au-
thoritative announcement shall be
made of what has been accomplished.
This manufacture of propaganda
aimed to influence public opinion is
one of the evil products of the war.
There was justification for it then in
the clash of diverse views and in the
natural desire of every government to
strengthen its position, but in time of
peace it should be reduced to a mini-
mum. Unfortunately it seems to be
on the increase, and the Washington
conference is astonishingly prolfic of
it. It makes it doubly hard for the
disinterested observer to learn what
is being done and to distinguish the
real from the fictitious. It dulls pub-
lic. interest and may excite national
animosities. Nine-tenths of it is mis-
leading and inaccurate. The propa-
ganda mill is a European institution
which could be dispensed with to the
great gain of interests represented at
the conference.
ad
Japan’s Government.
From the Altoona Tribune.
The recent assassination of the
prime minister of Japan and the ser-
ious and probably fatal illness of the
Mikado are events of vital import-
ance just now not only to Japan, but
also to the rest of the world. True,
we are told that the newly appointed
prime minister will carry out the pa-
cific policies of his predecessor. True,
also, that the newly appointed regent,
the crown prince Hirohito, who is
but 19 years of age, will doubtless
take the advice of the prime minister
and other statesmen, so that for the
present no great change will be visi-
ble. The truth is that the Mikado has
never yet governed; in the early days
he was regarded as a divine being, to
be carefully shielded from the vulgar
gaze of the common herd, and much of
the old superstitious loyalty attaches
to his person yet. In Japan the el-
der statesmen usually shape the gov-
ernment and there is some reason to
hope that common sense will guide
them in the future.
anm—————p ete
—— The “Watchman” gives all the
news while it is news.
| displaying only new tags.
any particularly good reason for its
yd
a
.-
'SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
_Mrs. Nancy Graham, aged 83 years,
who had 113 descendants, incinding fen
children, thirty-eight grandchildren, sixty-
one great-grdndchildren and four great-
great- grandchildren, died’ last Thursday
night at her home at Franklin, Pa.
—The Highway Department has called
attention to the fact that 1922 automobile
registration tags are not legal until the
first of the year and that 1921 tags will
‘have to be displayed until midnight * of
December 31st. Word has reached the
Department that many owners of cars are
— Professor Murray A. Knupp, principal
of schools at Twin Rocks, Cambria county,
was instantly killed at Purchase Line, In-
diana county, Saturday evening while
hunting on the old Knupp homestead by
the accidental discharge of the shotgun
carried by his brother Ralph. He was 32
years of age and a veteran of the world
war. .
—J. Andrew Reeve, an Osceola business
man, died in the office of doctor Ricketts,
as the result of an attack of mumps from
which he had been suffering for a week.
He had entered the physician's office ear-
ly and alone one morning last week, and
when the physician arrived, he found
Reeve’s body cold in death in a kneeling
position before a chair. The mumps had
affected his heart, it was announced.
— While returning home from an orches-
tra rehearsal Saturday night, G. 0. Wag-
ner, of Danville, was held up by two
masked bandits at a lonely corner. He
had a considerable amount of money on
his person and not wishing to hand it over
he wielded his violin, encased, with such
dexterity that the footpads were driven
off. In his manipulation of the fiddle, the
case and instrument were broken but he
saved his wallet.
— Evelyn Pringle, aged 25 years, mani-
cure and hairdresser, of Johnstown,
despondent over ill health, shot herself
through the heart on Friday. The tragedy
occurred in her beauty parlors directly
across from the city hall and police sta-
tion. Telling Elizabeth Orris, her assist-
ant, that she was’ going to kill herself,
Miss Pringle. walked into an adjoining
room. Miss Orris thought her friend was
joking. A moment later she heard the
shot and rushing to the room, saw Miss
Pringle fall. .
__Vietor Swartwood, 13 years of age, one
! of the youngest hunters in Wyoming coun-
ty, was shot by his own hunting dog on
Saturday and is a patient in a hospital at:
Wilkes-Barre. Swartwood, with an older
brother, went to the woods with their rab-
bit hound. They found the trail of a cot-
tontail, chased it to a stone wall and pre-
pared to dig it out. Young Swartwood
dropped his gun with the trigger cocked,
along the wall. While he was removing
stones the hound came along, stepped on
the trigger, discharged the gun, and the
boy was severely shot in the right foot. .
—That a police officer hired by council
cannot be fired by a mayor was the con-
tention in the suit in which S. M. Wil-
liams, former assistant police chief, at
Uniontown, was awarded $500, his salary
he usual time, and when ‘objections were
offered to the payment of his salary suit
was instituted. The court gave binding
instructions in favor of Williams, and re-
fused an appeal taken by the city solice
itor.
—Miss Clara Belle Lennox, who was
found unconscious, bleeding from a wound
in the head, in a thicket on the Greer
farm several miles north of New Castle, on
July 14th, died from the result of her in-
juries last Saturday, and district attorney
George Luse immediately announced that
a formal accusation will be made against
Thomas Verne Ryhal, now being held on
an assault charge in connection with the
case. Ryhal was arrested several days
after the alleged attack. Police Matron
Rae Murrhead stated at a preliminary:
hearing that Ryhal had told her that Miss
Lennox was injured in an accident.
—Rarly Sunday night, while returning
from services at the Free Methodist
church, at Oil City, Miss Iona Smock, aged
30 years, of Kennard, Mercer county, and
Miss Eleanor Williams, of Oil City, were
run down on a street crossing by an au-
tomobile driven by their pastor, Rev. M.
B. Miller. Lights from a passing automo-
bile on the wet windshield of the Miller
car blinded him momentarily and prevent-
ed ‘him from seeing the girls who were
two of a party of nine going home togeth-
er. Miss Smock died five minutes after
she reached the hospital. Miss Williams
is suffering from shock, but is expected to
recover.
—George W. Mears, one of the only two
Congressional medal of honor men in
Central Pennsylvania, died at Bloomsburg
on Friday aged 78 years. He won the
medal for leading five volunteers from the
Sixth Pennsylvania reserves, “the Iron
Guards,” against a nest of sharpshooters
at Gettysburg. He lost an arm in the bat-
tle of Antietam, and his recovery from
that wound was so remarkable that the
bones from his arm are kept in the med-
ical museum at Washington. He was the
first Morse code telegraph operator in
Central Pennsylvania, and for nearly fifty
years was in the employ of the D. L. &
W. Railroad company.
—Death put an end to the case in which
Milton Miller, 70 years old, of Bethlehem,
was charged by his mother, Mrs. Sarah
Layton, aged 92, with failing to cintrib-
ute to her support. Miller was to have
been given a hearing on Saturday before
Judge Swartz, but an attorney for Mrs,
Layton announced her death Friday night.
Miller contends he never was asked to con-
tribute toward his mother’s support; that
he was summoned to her home ten days
ago by a message saying she was dying,
and that when he arrived a constable was
awaiting him and placed him under ar-
rest. He claims that his mother had near-
ly $400 in bank, for which he was acting
as trustee.
—George W. Sweeley, of Nisbet, was
found guilty in criminal court at Wil-
liamsport on Monday, of shooting and kill-
ing Charles W. Carroll, while hunting,
mistaking him in the high weeds for a
groundhog. This is the first conviction
under this act of Assembly which was only
three months old when the killing occur-
red. It imposes penalties of from $100 to
$1,000, imprisonment of one to fiva_years
and revocation of hunting license from
two to ten years. An effort was made by
the defense to quash the indictment on the
ground of the unconstitutionality of the
act but the motion was denied. Hunters
in other parts of the State should fight
shy of such accidents.