Donor adn
SS TS SRI AE,
INK SLINGS.
—A new moon will put in her ap-
pearance today and maybe she’ll bring
rain with her.
—Secretary of State Hughes has
made a very streaked job of his at-
tempt to white-wash Senator New-
berry.
—The mine conference is deadlock-
ed because it can’t find any method of
fixing wages after next April 1st.
Why quibble over a date that will ush-
er in warm weather on a date that is
ushering in the cold.
—Lloyd George has been unsuccess-
ful in his efforts to make France be-
lieve that she can’t get blood out of
turnips. His failure has been in not
being able to convince France that
Germany really is a brassicaceous
plant.
— Fearing that our society editor
might overlook the incident we want
to note here that two of the Parks
sisters departed for their new home in
Muncy last week. Judge Quigley
hasn't, as yet, set the date for their
return.
The “Watchman” suggests that
all old-time Republicans attend the
Grange picnic at Centre Hall on
Thursday, September Tth. Brother
Giff will on that day open his cam-
paign and coincident therewith might
pull the bung out of his bar’l.
— The heat of the stars Adelbaran
Carpella and Betelgeuse has been es-
timated to be ten thousand degrees
centegrade. We mention this calcula-
tion of science not because any one
cares much how hot the stars are, but
because we opine that most of us
knew not that there are three of them
so named.
— Councilman Emerick called offi-
cial attention, on Monday night, to a
real nuisance in Bellefonte. We refer
to his complaint of the horde of boys
who gather about the entrance to
places of amusement and accost pas-
sersby for the price of admission. It
is annoying, to say the least, and
should be stopped.
— Already gloom is casting its shad-
ow over the college foot-ball camps
and it seems that a whole morgue has
fallen on that of State. Four of her
last year’s veterans are reported as
having decided to go to Colgate this
fali where they will play under Dick
Harlow, who was the line coach at
State for so many years before going
to Colgate.
With the approach of the Grange
picnic our interest increases in antic-
ipation of the verbal bout that is like-
ly to happen between our candidate,
John A. McSparran, and the Hon. Giff
Pinchot. We know that Mr. McSpar-
ran has everything on Giff but. the
bar’l and it remains to be seen wheth-
er our Grange friends will fall down
and worship the golden calf.
—_Bellefonte’s water has always
been pure. Every analysis that has
been made of it has demonstrated that
fact. Why, then, should the borough
be compelled to make an analysis
every month and send a report of it to
Harrisburg. No other reason under
the sun than to add to our taxes here
and make jobs for a few more clerks
in the Board of Health department at
Harrisburg. :
— Now that the Millheim merchant's
association has won that prize of two
hundred and fifty dollars for having
every retailer in the town a member
of their organization they ought to be
able to make its capture an annual
event. There are not a great many
retailers in Millheim so it is just pos-
sible that this prize will pay all their
dues so that they should have a full
enrollment again next year.
__If it was an Irishman who killed
Michael Collins he must have been as
mentally deranged as was the German
who killed Dr. Rathenau. Collins of-
fered Ireland her greatest hope of
peace. Rathenau was the one man
who might have brought order out of
chaos in Germany. Both were strong
men devoting their lives to the cause
of their nation’s reconstruction and
their murder was misguided as it was
lamentable.
—The advance in wages by the ma-
jor steel companies of the country at
this time suggests the thought that
big business has given up the attempt
to bring about deflation and will now
lead 2 movement toward higher prices
for commodities. Possibly they are
following what they deem to be the
line of least resistance. Labor looks
on the fat pay envelope as the thing
most to be desired, wholly unmindful
of the fact that the fat pay envelope
is possible only through advancing
costs of the things labor has to buy.
So that in the end labor is no better
off.
—_There are a great many things in
the career of Senator Bob La Follette
that the “Watchman” has criticized
but, if he really spent an eight month’s
vigil at the bedside of his son and
nursed him back to life after eminent
physicians and nurses had given the
case up as hopeless, those of his ene-
mies who are trying to defeat him for
nomination by charging him with be-
ing a slacker in his senatorial duties
during that period should blush with
shame. Senator La Follette may be
an erratic statesman but he must be
a father such as few sons have. A
man with a heart and a purpoes like
that can’t be as dangerous as some
would have us believe him to be. He
saved the life of his boy. What such
work might he have achieved had he
been in his seat in the Senate those
eight months?
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
A rarer PE tree
VOL. 67.
Newberryism an Issue.
Chairman Cordell Hull, of the Dem-
ocratic National committee, inter-
prets Secretary Hughes’ defense of
Senator Newberry as an attempt to
divert public attention from graver
matters by making “Newberryism”
the dominant issue of the impending
campaign. “In a desperate effort to
check the rising tide of popular indig-
nation due to the fact that the eigh-
teen months’ record of the administra-
tion and its Congress contains more
elements of complete failure than any
or all their predecessors,” Mr. Hull
declares, “Republican leaders have
felt obliged to single out this one is-
sue and make it paramount.” It was
hoped thus “to draw attention away
from the tremendously destructive ef-
fects of the Republican industrial pan-
ic of 1921-22 and from the confused,
lop-sided, uncertain and demoralized
state of business, industrial, economic
and social conditions of the nation
which the Republican administration
and the Republican Congress had not
shown the faintest capacity to deal
with.”
A man guilty of an atrocious mur-
der would probably be glad to plead
guilty to a charge of burglary in or-
der to escape the greater penalty of
the higher claim. Upon this principle
of defense Secretary Hughes may be
wise in offering the defense of the
electoral crimes of Senator Newberry
in so feeble and silly a form as to in-
vite refutation. But a murderer who
escapes the electric chair by confess-
ing burglary is hardly a model citizen
to be honored and emulated by his
neighbors. Senator Newberry was
tried before a Republican judge by a
Republican jury in a Republican com-
munity and convicted of criminally
buying a seat in the Senate by the
corrupt use of his own and his fami-
ly’s money. The Supreme court re-
versed the judgment of the lower court
on a technicality but did not dispute
the evidence or question the facts.
The moral turpitude was not denied
but it was held that the law applied
only to general elections and the crime
was. committed at a primary.
Secretary Hughes’ defense of New-
is so-weak that it might be tak-
en as & “plea i confession andavoid-
ance.” In any event it will not serve
the purpose: for which chairman Hull
believes it was intended. It will not
divert public attention from the great-
er issues of the campaign to which
Mr. Hull refers. The tax payers of
the country will not overlook the fact
that more than two billion dollars a
year have been added to their burdens
by the Fordney tariff bill and the mil-
lions of wage earners who are idle be-
cause of the “confused, lop-sided, un-
certain and demoralized state of bus-
iness, industrial, economic and social
conditions,” for which the Republican
party is responsible, will simply add
several counts to the indictment
against the Republican party and vote
it out of power at the first opportuni-
ty. The crime of Newberryism is
present and potent and George Whar-
ton Pepper is among those responsi-
ble for it. Pennsylvania voters will
not forget that.
em—————— lp ——
According to a news dispatch in
Tuesday’s papers the women members
of the Democratic State committee,
which met in Harrisburg on Monday,
adopted a plan to raise funds for
maintaining local headquarters and to
provide watchers for the polls in var-
ious parts of the State. They will sell
what they term “good government
policies” in denominations of $100,
$500 and $1000, but what will ulti-
mately become of the policies has not
been divulged.
—————————————
—The prolonged dry weather has
made the fall plowing a very difficult
problem for farmers. At the rate
some of them are wearing out plow
shares we are inclined to believe that
every bushel of wheat they have next
fall will have cost them one share, in
addition to the seed and labor.
— With the passage of the tariff
bill in the Senate President Harding
probably believes his political debts
have been paid in full. But-the peo-
ple who pay the taxes will have to be
reckoned with.
Our Republican contemporar-
ies, esteemed and otherwise, are very
much opposed to Mr. McSparran’s sys-
tem of campaigning and there is a
reason.
———————————
— We have been trying to figure
out what Harding had to do with the
settlement of the coal strike, but thus
far our efforts have been futile.
a——————
— Chairman Baker finds Mr. Pin-
chot a most docile and delightful fol-
lower. Penrose must have stroked
the fur the wrong way.
——————————————————
— With the coal strike ended we
ican all sing “Keep the Home Fires
| . v |
| Burning” with much greater confi-
dence.
IY
Ku Klux Methods in Politics.
Mr. Gifford Pinchot is introducing
some tricks and methods in polities,
according to current’ gossip, which is |
dazing the old line party tricksters. |
In digging an eighth of a million dol-
lars out of his family supply with
which to buy the nomination of his
party he surprised, but hardly shock- |
ed, the machine managers. As a rule :
they like liberal contributors and it
may safely be said that Giff’s gener- |
osity rather than his personality en-
ticed the organization managers to
promptly enlist under his banner. But
another innovation ‘which has just
come under public notice has had a
different effect upon the minds of the
old stagers. Mr. W. Harry Baker has
promptly and emphatically repudiat-
ed it.
This is a rather expensive but prob-
ably not ineffective endeavor to cor-
ral the women voters by holding out
an alluring promise of recompense.
The plan is to organize female “first
voters” in clubs and bind them under
solemn obligation to vote the straight
Republican ticket. The lure is an of-
fer of a prize of $1000 to the woman
or girl who procures the greatest
number of signatures to such pledges '
or organizes the largest number of
clubs so obligated. The League of
Woman Voters, organized for the pur- |
pose of educating the women of the
State to the best use of the ballot, has
denounced the enterprise in severe
terms and the chairman of the State
committee has declared that he had
nothing to do with it. !
Mr. Pinchot appears to imagine that |
all political results are obtained by |
the use of money. It was probably :
for that reason that he violated his
oath “to support, obey and defend” |
the constitution of Pennsylvania in!
order to get a three thousand dollar !
increase in salary ag Commissioner of
Forestry, and spent money freely to |
buy the nomination for Governor. But |
the prompt action of the women of |
Pennsylvania who hope the franchise
will be properly used by the women in
the State shows that they are of a
different mind on the subject. They |
do not believe in buying votes direct, '
as Pinchot must have done in the pri- |
‘mary, or by subterfuge, as he propos--
es to get them at the general election. i
——Lady Rhondo, who was recently
refused a seat in the British House of
Lords, is now in this country. She is
“running true to form.” Britishers
capitalize their disappointments as
well as their successes in this country.
Swat ‘Enemies and Flies.
The Fordney:McCumber tariff bill
passed the Senate on Saturday by a
vote of forty-eight to twenty-five,
three Democrats, Broussard and Rans-
dell, of Louisiana, sugar planters, and
Kendrick, of Wyoming, wool grower,
voting with the majority and one Re-
publican, Borah, of Idaho, on the mi-
nority side. Some twenty Republican
Senators spoke against the measure
while it was under discussion and vot-
ed against important features. But
the party lash brought them into line
on the final vote and denouncing it as
iniquitous, they voted for it as a
whole. Both the Senators for Penn-
sylvania voted in the affirmative, that
being the first vote of Senator Reed,
of Pittsburgh.
It is estimated that the bill, if it be-
comes a law, will increase the cost of
living to the extent of nearly two bil-
lion dollars. This enormous burden is
levied upon all or nearly all the nec-
essaries of life. Foods, clothing,
building materials, medicines are alike
put under levy to impoverish the peo-
ple under the false pretense of sup-
plying revenue to the government. As
a matter of fact it will diminish rath-
er than increase the revenues, for
many of the schedules are actually
prohibitive of importations. The late
President McKinley admonished the
country against this element of evil
before his death. He said that unless
we bought in foreign markets we can’t
sell there.
The bill is particularly hard on the
women of the country. As we pointed
out last week it will add $58,000,000
to the cost of corsets and $587,000,000
to the cost of hosiery and knit goods.
In the event that importations contin-
ue after in the proportion of before
the law was made corsets and hosiery
and knit goods will produce revenues
to the total of $3,610,000. But if, as
Mr. McKinley predicted, imports
cease the cost will increase to the full
measure and there will be no recom-
pense to the treasury. Meantime the
women voters should bear in mind the
fact that Pepper and Reed, who voted
to put this burden upon them, are
candidates for reelection. Swat en- |
emies as well as flies.
The McKinley tariff cost the Re-
publicans a defeat. The Payne-Al-
drich tariff presented the country with
the same favor. Now watch the ef-
fect of the Fordney bill if it ever be-
comes a law.
' several committees
BELLEFONTE, PA., AUGUST 25. 19
Nothing more is likely to be heard
of Gifford Pinchot “running a sepa-
rate campaign.” Giff has been com-
pletely subdued. Chairman Baker
visited him at his “estate” in Pike
county, last week, and came away
beaming with satisfaction. Giff took
his medicine and literally ate it out of
the hand of the boss. The itinerary
was agreed upon, the tone of the
speeches settled, the personnel of the
determined. It
was a splendid fraternization of con-
genial spirits and while Pepper is
“spitting in the eye of a bull dog”
Giff will be cooing in a dove cote of
the machine under the patronage of’
Baker, Leslie and Eyre. The situa-
tion is inspiring. ‘The silver lining is
the feature of the cloud.
When Baker and Eyre and Leslie
analyzed the methods by which Pin-
chot procured an increase of salary as
Forestry Commissioner, in spite of
the constitution, they realized that
the success of Pinchot is not a menace
to the machine. It made him one of
the bunch. When they got an accu-
rate appraisement of his contribution
to the primary campaign fund, they
concluded that he was needed in their
business. There are few even among
the ambitious fools of the country
who are willing to employ a scoop
shovel in dumping dollars into the
slush fund, and such rare birds are
lovely plucking. So after permitting
Giff to make a few harmless gestures
in the direction of independence, they
quietly took him in.
There is still a “fly in the ointment,”
but chairman Baker hopes it may be
removed or made harmless. Grundy
and Vare continue to hate each other
intensely. Vare would have been for
Pinchot for the nomination if Grundy
had been for the other fellow. There
is really no irreconcilable difference
between Giff and Ed. But Grundy
nominated Giff and if the candidate
attaches himself to Vare, Grundy will
“kick over the traces.” On the other
hand if Giff affiliates with Grundy,
Vare will “spill the beans.” So there
you are. But the prosperity of the
machine is unimpaired in any event.
Baker will use Pinchot’s money to re-
pair damages *to the: “criminal con-
spiracy masquerading as the Republi-
can party.”
It is said that the average life
of a five dollar bill is ten months, ac-
cording to a bulletin issued by the
Federal Reserve bank. It is some-
times impossible for us to keep one
alive ten minutes.
———— gp —————————
Senator Smoot Tells the Truth.
During the closing hours of the de-
bate on the tariff bill, in the Senate
on Saturday, Senator Reed Smoot, of
Utah, leader in the Mormon church
and the Republican party, said of one
of the features of that measure:
“This is an embargo a thousand times
over and worse than an embargo.
Dyes and coal tar chemicals not made
in this country will have to pay a rate
of duty so high that it is a erime. No
human being can defend these rates
before the American people.” The
beneficiaries of this unjust exaction is
a group of millionaires who contrib-
uted vast sums to the campaign fund
of 1920 to buy the election of Hard-
ing.
What Senator Smoot says is true.
At the instance of these monopolists
the Harding administration tried to
force an actual embargo into the
measure but the name was too harsh.
A number of Republican Senators ob-
jected to it and the rates of taxation
to which Smoot objected were substi-
tuted. These rates are not called an
embargo but they operate as an em-
bargo. They make it impossible to
import dye stuffs and give the monop-
olists absolute power to charge any
price they choose to fix for coloring
matter used in every fabric made of
wool, cotton or other fibers used in
making wearing apparel.
But the Mormon apostle, Senator
Smoot, has no just cause of complaint
against the tariff bill on that account.
What he said about the rate on dye
stuffs might be said with equal truth
about the tax on wool and the tax on
sugar. But the Morman church has
immense sums of money invested in’
sheep and sugar beets and Smoot in-
sisted on the “worse than an embar-
20” on wool and sugar. The exorbi-
tant tax on dyes may cause a decrease
in the price of wool but the Mormons
will get theirs in any event. Besides
Smoot voted for the bill on final pas-
sage with the dye stuff embargo in it,
thus stultifying himself and revealing
his insincerity.
——One political question has been
settled finally and by unanimous con-
sent. William Randolph Hearst has
announced that he doesn’t want to be
Governor of New York.
m—————— A —————————
The leaves will soon turn
brown, the straw hats having already
set the example.
22.
Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here. |
‘the education and the experience of
Rip Van Winkle Fumbles.
From the New York World, BE
As it fumbles one thing after
another—the tariff, the bonus, the
railroads, coal, shipping and foreign
economic policy—the question arises
as to what has happened to the con-
spicuous ability which by tradition be-
longs to the Republican party. It is
the Republicans themselves who are
asking this question. They are puz-
zled. Ever since the Civil war it has
been a more or less accepted theory
that the general run of Republican
leadership, whatever its other faults,
was at least abler than that of the
Democrats.
The spectacle in Washington since
March 4th, 1921, has completely up-
set that theory. Whether you look at
Congress or at the White House,
whether you make your comparison
with Wilson's first term during peace
and neutrality or with his second
term under the stupendous military
and economic difficulties of war, the
comparison in results achieved, in
problems solved, in obstacles over-
come, is humiliating to every straight-
thinking Republican. The Republi-
cans have had no easy task, of course.
But compared with the tasks of the
preceding foyr years theirs have been
simple. Nothing the Republicans have
attempted can for an instant be com-
pared, for example, with the task of
enlisting and equipping 4,000,000 men,
and of transporting 2,000,000 of them
across a dangerous ocean. Certainly
the tariff won’t bear comparison nor
the shopmen’s strike nor the coal
strike.
Yet everybody knows that the Dem-
ocrats are not born any wiser nor ed-
ucated any better than the Republi-
cans. What explanation is there than
for the general mess which the Re-
publicans have made of their job?
The explanation, it seems to us, is
that the Republican leaders missed
the war. They were in opposition.
Few of them in Congress or in the Ad-
ministration lived day by day with
the towering responsibilities of the
war. Few of them saw intimately
and from the inside how the problems
of government expanded and compli-
cated themselves. Mr. Harding him-
self, for example, saw only as a spec-
tator the vast historic change which
the war brought to Washington. He
had little share in the change himself.
He did not grow up with the thing as
the Democrats were forced: n ANG
he did not learn by pair
by mistakes and experiments,
the new legislative and administrative
w
problems are. Mr. Harding and his
Senatorial colleagues were fundamen-
tally untouched by the war, else he
could not have said, as he did say just
before election, that government is
after all a simple thing.
Failing to learn by experience what
was happening, Mr. Harding no doubt
sincerely believed that the mistakes of
the Democrats could easily have been
avoided by the Republicans. Living
mentally in the days before 1912, im-
agining that politics and economics
were what they had been in the days
of irresistible Republicanism, he and
his group thought they had only to
take office, had only to apply the old
Republican formulae, had only to
avoid doing. what Wilson had done, in
order to make at triumphant return
to the good old days.
Mr. Harding knows now in a vague
sort of way that he was sadly mistak-
en. He knows that government after
the great war is no longer a simple
thing. And the country knows now
that a reputation for conspicuous
ability may outlive the fact.
From the Civil war to about 1903
that reputation rested on a fairly sol-
id foundation. The Republicans held
power so long that they attracted to
themselves more than their share of
the abler men. The Democrats, on
the other hand, while they were under
the Bryan influence could not attract
their share of the experienced and ex-
ecutive men. But in 1912 there was
a revolution in both parties and the
World war found the Democrats in
power under modern leadership. Just
as the Republicans before 1908 had
been taught by experience, so the
Democrats were taught in the terri-
ble ordeal of the war. They made
huge and costly mistakes. But under
the spur of absolute necessity they
also achieved unparallelled sucesses.
The experience of the war has for
all practical purposes been lost to the
Republicans. Mr. Harding missed it,
Mr. Lodge missed it, Mr. Hughes
missed it, Messrs. McCumber and
Fordney missed it. They are the Rip
Van Winkles of politics. In the face
of the new problems of government
they are amateurs who have first to
unlearn the dogmas of a lifetime be-
fore they can begin to learn the ne-
cessities of the present. They are
like left-handed batters who, for some
reason quite unknown to them, are
suddenly called to the plate and told
to bat right-handed.
————e—————————
Northcliffe Left Millions.
From the Philadelphia Record.
Lord Northcliffe is reputed to have
left $45,000,000. He was a good deal
of a plunger, but he must have plung-
ed always on the right side. We
could mention several Americans who
have made as much money as North-
cliffe did, but they had no such influ-
ence on public affairs. Northcliffe had
extraordinary abilities in several di-
rections. He had the courage of a
gambler, he was always right in his
investments, and he managed to be
| road bonds lying on the sidewa
SPAWLS FROM THE KEY
—Destructive forest fires are ra
Columbia county. &
— Improvements to be begun imr
Iy at the Jeannette plants of the
Window Glass company will maki
largest of its kind in the world.
—Cumberland, - Bradford, Ju
Northumberland counties are
the applications for permits for
kets this year. The season for
vices opens next Tuesday and
which were high on the list las
again showing up well.
—Alex Karl, a thirteen year
boy, found $7000 in Baltimore &
business district of Altoona on Sa f
He took them to a bank where later. the
owner appeared, proved property and re-
warded the lad’s honesty with $1. = ©
—Discovery of a vein of anthracite coal
twenty inches thick was made by well !
gers on the farm of George Year,
Snydertown, Northumberland county, last
week, The location is eight miles east of
what geologists term the western end of
the Northumberland county coal measures.
—Seized with a heart attack while bath-
ing in the surf at Atlantic City on Monday:
afternoon, Miss Esther Kerchner, 23 year
old daughter of George Kerchner, postmas--
ter at Macungie, Pa., was found floating on
the surf of the ocean just outside the line
of breakers at Providence avenue. The
body was. recovered. ;
*—Rev. John Brodhed, who had been at
his home in Franklin on a vacation after
returning from Zululand, where he was for
twenty-five years on missionary work, has
‘gone to England on his way back to his
field of labors. He will seek the services
of a scientific farmer to stir up interest in
Zululand in agriculture.
—Frank Watkins, a convicted bank rob-
ber, has been a model prisoner in the Al-
legheny county jail for two years. But a
chance for freedom came Saturday night
and he took it. Watkins used a duplicate
key, which he had made to unlock the out-
er door. An officiel at the morgue nearby
told deputies that he saw Watkins leav-
ing the building.
—Miss Katie Manning and Miss Alice
Lewis, of West Chester, and a party of
teachers from State College, are on a trip
to Florida. They will stop at Asheville
and at Atlanta and study the cotton indus-
tries. In Florida they will visit Jackson-
ville, St. Augustine, Tampa, and St. Pe-
tersburg. They will tour Florida by au-
tomobiles and by the St. John’s Ockalawa
River routes, returning by steamer.
—Some years ago Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Dawson, of West Chester, were married,
but became so busy rearing a family of
seven children that they never found time
for a wedding trip, until a few days ago,
when, after Mr. Dawson had laid aside his
composing stick and other tools in a print-
ing establishment, where he has been em-
ployed for thirty years or more, they left
on their “wedding trip,” and will spend a
week in Buffalo, N. X., Niagara Falls, To-
ronto, Canada, and other places.
Fire which swept the West Newton
business district Saturday night and
which was not completely extinguished un-
til noon on Sunday, wrought a total loss
of approximately $300,000. Fourteen build-
ings, including several houses, were con-
‘sumed. A score of buildings were damag-
Xe ‘ed. State police and constables patrojled
at!
the burned area. Fire companies from a
dozen adjacent counties and towns aided
the local force and at least ten firemen
sustained minor injuries. The fire started
in an unoccupied garage.
—Traveling 3000 miles across the conti-
nent at a total cost of one cent a mile was
the experience of John N. Adams and Mr.
and Mrs. Howard Adams. They left Pitts-
burgh July 10th for a hike to San Fran-
cisco, and on August 9th they arrived in
Los Angeles, making an average of about
100 miles. They made 230 miles the first
day, covering 224 miles by free rides in
automobiles in 19 different cars and walk-
ed the remaining six miles. Thereafter
they followed the same procedure, making
from 50 to 225 miles a day.
—“You can be killed by lightning or
electric shock and not have a single dis-
figuring mark upon you,” decided State
Compensation Commissioner Houck on
Saturday. Experts from the western pen-
itentiary, where the State’s murderers are
electrocuted, gave evidence to this effect,
and on their testimony the widow of Wil-
liam Fields was awarded substantial com-
pensation from the Mississippi Glass com-
pany at Florette, Schuylkill county.
Fields’ body was found without any mark
upon it, and the company alleged he died
from pneumonia. But as his tool box was
knocked from the wall and he was heard
shrieking just before his body was found,
the conclusion was that he had been elec-
trocuted.
—Workmen who are excavating for the
new junior high school in Altoona are
keeping a sharp lookout for buried treas-
ure. The site where the new school is to
be erected, in the Fourth ward, once was
an oak forest, near where ran the Kittan-
ning trail over the mountains to westeru
Pennsylvania. Lewis, the robber, who
stole from the rich and gave to the poor,
operated in that vicinity three-quarters of
a century ago, and it is a matter of tradi-
tion that he buried some of the loot in
that neighborhood, although none of it
ever was found. Excavators received a
thrill when the big steam shovel tossed up
a rusty can, but it was filled only with
bolts, nuts, nails, screws and a horseshoe.
They expect the horseshoe to give them
good luck.
__A large bank barn on the Joseph Hos-
tetler farm along the mountain back of
Belleville, Mifflin county, was struck by
lightning in a week-end storm and burned
with its contents in spite of the efforts of
the Belleville fire company. The bolt
struck fairly in the middle of the structure
and a mass of flames shot up like an ex-
plosion. The barn contained the grain of
the season's crops, including the threshing
outfit, the property of Seth Yoder, which
was to remain in the barn over the week
before moving. All of the stock except
six little puppies were saved. The loss
will exceed $15,000. At the Lizzie Taylor
farm, adjacent, the silo was torn from its
moorings and scattered about the farm,
the roof was torn from the barn and the
fruit orchard demolished. Only six trees
were left standing. The W. O. Rearick
home was visited by the storm and the
porch swept clean of furniture, which has
not been recovered, and the glass of the
door broken in. The rod holding the
weather vane on the top of the Presbyter-
ian church was bent double and the church
also a foremost political factor.
property damaged.