INK SLINGS.
—Hunters who were longing for a
tracking snow had their wishes grant-
ed for the last two days of the season,
at least.
—1It’s a sad day for the house-wife
who doesn’t know how to run her
kitchen stove with soft coal—and
there are a lot of them.
—About all the real information
that Governor-elect Pinchot has ex-
uded up to this time is the announce-
ment that he doesn’t intend to raise
a crop of peach Colonels while he is in
office.
—Let us hope that the snow that
started falling early yesterday morn-
ing takes the frost out of the ground
and soaks in rather than remain as the
foundation for more that may follow
before we have rains sufficient to re-
plenish our springs and streams.
@&
—President Harding wants the con-
stitution amended so that so many
tax-exempt securities cannot be is-
sued. Inasmuch as the States are the
originators of tax-exempt securities
we have an idea that they won’t be
very keen for ratifying an amendment
that would take that advantage away
from them.
—Of course we know very little
about the operation of the proposed
ship subsidy bill, but unless its spon-
sors can show something better than
an annual government outlay of forty-
million dollars to stop a present an-
nual loss of fifty-million few people
will be able to get the big idea. It
looks like too much good money to be
sent after the bad.
—Our Santa Claus letter is in the
chimney and our stocking is already
hanging on the counter where the mail
man can get to it easily. All we have
asked Santa for is to put it in the
hearts of every cne of our subscrib-
ers who are not paid up to 1923 to
send us a check or something that will
buy paper and ink and hands and
brains to make this old sheet better
than it has ever been before.
—At Allentown, one day last week,
former Vice President Marshall de-
livered himself of another of those ep-
igrammatic bon-mots for which he is
noted. He said: “If I had my way I
would burn up the law books and go
back to the Ten Commandments and
the Golden Rule and if everybody
practiced them we’d have no need for
other laws.” Mr. Marshall hopes for
Utopia, but so long as selfishness,
avarice and deception remain to hu-
man nature there will be those who
will forget the Ten Commandments
and the Golden Rule whenever it is
convenient.
—On April 26th, 1921, the officials
of ‘Philadelphia, conferred the unusuzl
honor of the freedom of the city on
John Wanamaker. On December 12th,
1922, the spirit of the great merchant,
philanthropist and Christian knocked
at the gates of the Eternal City and
we think the angelic hosts there con-
ferred the freedom of that city on him
too. The memory of Mr. Wanamaker
will be indissolubly associated with his
great mercantile establishments but
his marvelous humanitarian work
through his Bethany Sunday school
was what will leave the impress of his
character on the generations that are
to follow.
—The advance notices of this Mr.
Emile Coue fellow, who is coming over
from France to give us a new sugges-
tion as to health, interested us a lot at
first.” We don’t know much about
psychoastric reactions, but there’s no
patent medicine or hair restorer that
has been advertised since the days of
Jayne’s expectorant and the Seven
Sutherland Sisters—that we haven’t
tried—and still we need a remedy.
For a week we'd been rhyming over
Coue’s “Every day, in every way, I'm
getting better, and better!” and then
Thanksgiving came and we cracked.
Cracked worse than we've ever crack-
ed before. Personally we're off the
Coue stuff. We ought never to have
fallen for it, because itis one of those
“mind over matter” panaceas and with
us that’s a case of the tail trying to
wag the dog.
—Tt is so rarely that we hear a clev-
er story with local color that we want
to tell you one that a gentleman re-
counted to us Sunday afternoon. When
Ralph Spigelmyer came to Bellefonte
to open his Racket store almost the
first thing he did was to hang a pair
of screen doors at its main entrance.
Incidentally, they were the first screen
doors on any mercantile establishment
in town, and naturally were the cause
of considerable comment. One busi-
ness neighbor who dropped in to rag
Mr. Spigelmyer about his innovation
discovered a hole in the netting on one
of the doors and asked what it was
for. He was told that it had been put
there at considerable expense so that
the flies already in the room could get
out. This facetious explanation of the
new merchant was taken seriously and
some who heard it prejudged him a
“nut,” and told him so. The screen
doors and the fly hole went the rounds
of the town and Mr. Spigelmyer fol-
lowed through on his little joke by
hanging a sign above the hole in the
wire that read “Exit for flies only.”
One day the late Miss Emily Natt vis-
ited the store and, as she was leaving,
her attention was arrested by the no-
tice on the door. After reading it she
turned and, with a bit of a twinkle in
her eyes, remarked to the proprietor:
“I presume that Natts are not permit-
ted to go out at this exit.”
®
V
Demaeralic
y
a
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 67.
BELLEFONTE, PA., DECEMBER 135.
President Harding’s Message.
|
Congress assembled in the last ses- |
sion of the Sixty-seventh Congress on
Monday of last week, but President
Harding was too busy at playing golf
and other diversions or duties to de-
Good News from Washington.
Attorney General Daugherty ex- |
presses full confidence in the futili-
ty of the impeachment proceedings
which Representative Keller, of Min-
nesota, has been pressing against
liver his annual message until Friday. | him, but if the promise conveyed by
No other President has ever been so
tardy. The second day of the session
rumors from Washington is fulfilled
the enterprise may be worth while. It
has usually been the time for the |is rumored that immediately after his
communication of the
President’s | trial and acquittal Mr. Daugherty will
views or advice, and previous to Pres- | resign. That would be a splendid re-
ident Wilson’s term the form had sult of a rather hopeless effort to im-
been in writing. President Wilson | prove the public life of Washington.
adopted the oral form and President Daugherty is a misfit in the position
Harding has followed his example. In he occupies and his voluntary retire-
pursuance of this custom and manner ment would be acceptable to a vast
a joint
session of the chambers was | majority of the people. Even ardent
held on Friday and President Harding : Republicans have freely expressed dis-
delivered a rather discursive but some-
what interesting address to the Sen-
ators and Members.
On most subjects referred to in his
message President Harding is inclined
to depend upon inferences. He doesn’t
say so directly but infers that the pol-
icy of co-operation among railroad
lines running in the same direction,
introduced by Mr. McAdoo during the
period of government operation, is
wiser than competition for business.
It is not unlikely that railroad man-
agers will agree with him in that view.
It is certain that they will all coin-
cide with his opinions on the relation
between railroad employers and em-
ployees. “No man can be denied his
right to labor when and how he |
. duties, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
chooses or cease to labor when he so
elects,” the President declares, but
“the security of society itself demands
his retirement from the service shall
not be so timed and related as to ef-
fect the destruction of that service.”
In other words strikes shall be pen-
alized.
On the question of the enforcement
of the prohibition amendment and the
Volstead act President Harding is as
unyielding as the Anti-Saloon League
could desire. He admits the officials
have been making a mess of the mat-
ter and has “caused the humiliation
of our government and the humiliation
of our people before the world.” But
the President promises to call a con-
ference of the Governors of all the
States to devise a plan which will
achieve a rigid enforcement. It is the
usual “passing of the buck,” which
experience in the past has proved a
poor expedient. He also recommends
the enactment of legislation to pro-
hibit the issue of tax-free securities
which are absorbing the capital of our
millionaires.
——The French Tiger may not get
i
gust with his administration of the
office.
The reasons which will influence Mr.
Daugherty to resign, according to cur-
rent rumors, is that he has come to
realize that he is too heavy a load for
the Harding administration to carry.
None too well fixed in popular confi-
dence the administration has been
hampered and the party annoyed by
the antics of this obscure lawyer in a
service which requires the highest
standard of legal learning and mental
attainments. His appointment was
the result of personal obligation for
political service. If he had had the
good sense of some of his predeces-
sors to act as a figure-head and em-
ploy capable assistants to perform the
But he forced himself to the front and
every time he opened his mouth he
“put his foot in it.”
But he is justified in his confidence
of acquittal by the court of impeach-
ment if it is ever organized to try
him. The chief dispenser of spoils
for the administration, he has already
fixed a mortgage upon more than half
the Republican Senators, and in courts
of impeachment partisan exigencies
are vastly more potent than evidence,
direct or circumstantial. For that
reason Daugherty will be acquitted no
matter how strong a case is made
against him. But if he will resign
the public will be reconciled and the
proceedings justified. For he could
have been got out in no other way,
and the Department of Justice falling
‘from bad to worse would soon have
become a laughing stock.
As we have already remarked
Harding may be able to force the ship
subsidy bill through this Congress but
if he fails it never will be passed, and
in any event it will be of no use for
the reason that the next Congress will
all he came to this country for but he | not make the necessary appropriation.
has certainly set a number of people
to thinking seriously about what
might have been.
Immense Cost of Victory.
While Governor-elect Pinchot con-
tributed only $1,500.00 to the cam-
paign fund for the general election | him a complimentary dinner.
his victory cost a large sum of money. | other Pennsylvanians
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
:
i
Setting a Trap for Giff.
When Martin Brumbaugh was elect-
ed Governor of Pennsylvania a way
back in 1914 “Bill” Vare, then as now,
Representative in Congress for the
First Philadelphia district, tendered
All the
in Congress
The reports of expenditures filed at | were invited and a number of promi-
the office of the Secretary of the Com-
monwealth show that the State com-
mittee spent $156,501.60, the George
Wharton Pepper committee spent
about $90,000,00, making a total of
$246,501.60. Other committees col-
lected and disbursed large sums in-
creasing the aggregate cost of the Re-
publican campaign, according to con-
servative estimates, to upward of half
a million dollars. This sum, added to
the expenditures during the primary
campaign for the two candidates for
the gubernatorial nomination, makes
Newberry look like a “piker.”
The Democratic State committee ex-
pended $36,786.72 in all. The local
committees financed their own cam-
paigns, the Congressional and other
local candidates of that party had to
depend upon their own resources for
“sinews of war,” and as few of them
had hopes of election, their disburse-
ments were meager. Notwithstanding
this discrepancy the Democratic can-
didates carried nearly half the coun-
ties in the State and polled a consid-
erable majority of the votes outside of
Philadelphia and Allegheny county,
including Pittsburgh. The vast ma-
jority in Philadelphia was purchased
in a job lot a few days before the elec-
tion at an expense in principle that
can only be measured in the future.
We sincerely hope that Governor-
elect Pinchot will fulfill his pledges of
reform and betray the promises made
in fact or by implication to those ma-
chine politicians whom he denounced
during his primary campaign. In that
event the people of Pennsylvania will
not suffer the full measure of evil con-
sequences of a machine victory. He is
now talking boldly of a purpose to
carry out his primary campaign
pledges but it is to be feared that he
is not accurately appraising the power
of the machine in shaping the policies
of his administration. It is certain
that he will have a formidable fight
on his hands and not sure that he will
be able to win the battle, though
Democrats will give him help.
nent machine politicians participated
in the feast. The contracting business
was at high tide of prosperity and the
late Mr. Balshazzar had nothing on
Brother Bill in the matter of sumptu-
ousness. There were “hot birds” and
“cold bottles” galore and “hot air” in
abundance. It was a memorable event
‘and the talk of the political rialto for
many weeks but made little history.
Martin Brumbaugh was a widely
known educator but a novice in poli-
tics. He could solve problems in Eu-
clid but didn’t know a thing about or-
ganizing a ward or getting out the
vote. He was like a fallow field for
such political mechanics as Vare to
operate upon, and they made the most
of their opportunities at the compli-
mentary dinner given by Brother Bill
in his honor. Bill is an orator and he
invested all his ornate periods in
praise of the young Lochinvar from
the west whom they had discovered.
Brother Bill made him see things
which had never before come to him
even in dreams. He brought out a
beautifully executed and artistic com-
mission for President and laid it at
the feet of Martin.
Brother Bill has arranged for anoth-
er “feast of reason and flow of soul”
in Washington, but this time it is not
in honor of Martin. Martin is a
“dead duck” in the pond and though
“lame ducks” sometimes get consider-
action dead ducks are neglected. The
coming event is to be complimentary
to another Governor-elect, the Hon-
orable Gifford Pinchot. It will be
pulled off in the near future, the prin-
cipal purpose being to start the Pres-
idential bee to buzzing in the Pinchot
bonnet. The expectations for this
event are laid on an altitudinous level
and the result will depend largely up-
on the gullibility of Giff. If he yields
to the delicate touch of the Vare fin-
ger his finish is in sight.
ne ermine is
——If there were no other reason
the early shopper gets first pick of the
stock and that’s worth while.
!
Japan Fulfills an Obligation.
While the question of ratifying the
covenant of the League of Nations
was pending in the Senate several
years ago, Senator Lodge and one or
two other “bitter enders,” amused the
country by throwing fits at frequent
intervals over the injustice done to
China by giving to Japan temporary
title to Tsingtao. China had some
years previous to the world war leas-
ed the province of Shantung, of which
Tsingtoa was part, to Germany for a
period of ninety-nine years. Germany
had spent some millions of dollars
building railroads and docks in pur-
suance of the lease. During the war
Japan drove Germany out of the ter-
ritory and acquired title to the lease
and improvements by conquest.
At the peace conference Japan as-
serted its right to hold what it had
won under long established interna-
tional rules of war and an agreement
between the allies and Japan. Eng-
land, France and Italy, bound by the
treaty obligation, acceded to the
claim. President Wilson held that the
territory rightfully belonged to Chi-
na, but in order to secure a treaty of
peace, consented to the claim of Japan
after having obtained from the repre-
sentatives of Japan in the conference,
a pledge that within a reasonable time
and upon just and fair conditions, the
lease would be cancelled and title to
the property restored to China. For
this President Wilson was viciously
assailed by the bitter-enders, who de-
clared he had been deceived and per-
fidiously betrayed his country.
Within the past week the govern-
ment of Japan has fulfilled the obliga-
tion entered into between its repre-
sentatives in the peace conference and
Woodrow Wilson by legally conveying
all its right, title and claim to the
province of Shantung and the munic-
ipality of Tsingtoa, to the government
of China. President Wilson was mov-
ed to demand this obligation in ful-
fillment of his proposition that every
people concerned in the peace treaty
was entitled to self determination in
government. The recent act of Japan
has achieved that result so far as Chi-
& .
na and Japan are concerned and it has
also made a monkey of Senator Lodge,
who nt his energy and idiocy in la-, sy
ane | dent advises neither.
menting the wrong done to China.
A young lady walked into the
“Watchman” office on Tuesday and
exclaimed, “Oh, isn’t that a pippin!”
referring to the big golden apple on
exhibition in the window. It is a
“pippin,” all right but its real name is
Golden Graham and it was sent in by
Capt. W. H. Fry just as a sample of
the kind of apples grown on the farm
of his neighbor. And we might add
that the Captain stated that he had
lots of others just as large and some
larger, and that they are very deli-
cious for eating purposes.
——Governor Sproul advises house-
holders and everybody, in fact, to use
bituminous coal in order to save an-
thracite, which leads us to wonder if
the Governor is using bituminous in
his Front street mansion to the same
end.
——So successful was the Jackson
day banquet held last year by the
Democrats of Centre county that ar-
rangements are now being made to
hold one this year on or about Janu-
ary 8th. More definite announcement
will be made after the Holidays.
——Nobody knows who will be
Speaker of the House during the com-
ing session of the Legislature, but it
is a safe bet he will be entirely satis-
factory to the Old Guard and solid for
prohibition.
———————— pss
Larry Eyre may be elected
President pro tem of the Senate at
the organization of the Legislature
but he needn’t expect Governor-elect
Pinchot to recommend him.
— geil
——If Senator LaFollette imagines
that President Harding wants to help
the farmers he has another guess
coming. Harding knows he can get
the farmers any time.
nr ———
——DMrs. Gifford Pinchot declares
that women have no separate inter-
est in politics. Probably she is hedg-
ing on Giff’s promise to appoint a
woman to his cabinet.
i —————
——Anyway Dr. Coue will put the
acid test on public credulity by his
“conscious autosuggestion” campaign
in this country.
Max Leslie protested that he
wouldn’t do anything for Pinchot but
he contributed $1000.00 to the cam-
paign fund.
——If LaFollette leads the filibus-
ter long speeches will be the method
of attack.
——-Subscribe for the “Watchman.”
1922.
NO. 49
The President’s Message.
From the Philadelphia Record.
The President’s message is more of
an address on current topics than a
program of legislation. The import-
ant topics described rather than dis-
cussed by him are quite familiar in
Congress and to the public. The prac-
tical question is what can be done
about them. In some cases the Pres-
ident suggests action; in others he
does not even go so far as that.
. What he says about transportation
indicates a complete revolution in
opinion in the last few years. When
the original Cullom law was passed,
and thereafter down to a very recent
period, reliance was almost wholly on
competition. Every effort was made
to keep the companies separate, to
prevent even agreements and under-
standings; a railway rate war was as-
sumed to be the ideal condition. Ear-
lier than two years ago the Interstate
Commerce Commission had put out
some tentative suggestions of combi-
nation instead of competition, but
Congress did not reach that stage un-
til it enacted the Transportation law
in 1920. Now the President offers as
the means of securing lower freight
rates the linking up af the several
lines, co-operation in the use of cars,
and the use of motor vehicles as feed-
ers to the railways rather than as ri-
vals, which is the part they are now
playing.
The President is more explicit in
regard to the labor than almost any-
thing else. He is satisfied that the
employees have no right to paralyze
the nation’s business by a strike. If
strikes can be prevented on the rail-
ways they can be prevented on other
public utilities such as coal mining.
The notorious fact is that the em-
ployees on public utilities calculate on
the suffering of the community as the
means of carrying their point.
The President’s recommendation
that the Railroad Labor Board be
abolished and its functions exercised
by a division of the Interstate Com-
merce Commission is good. If any an-
thority is to fix wages it should be
the one that already fixes rates. But
it is going to be no easier for a divis-
ion of Sie Inpstate Commerce Com-
mission than for the presen
satisfy both sides. P t Bord
The enforcement of the Volstead
law is a matter for the President and
his subordinates. Congress might im-
pose capital punishment on violators,
or it might modify the law sufficiently
to make it wi t the Prasi-
¢ c or does he ad-
vise anything else. He has $9,000,000
a year and unlimited force, and it is
for him to make the law effective, or
to confess to Congress that it cannot
be done. He is going to call a con-
ference of Governors to see what can
be done, but the Governors are doing
all they can, except to hang offenders.
Several months ago the President
appeared before a Bible class in
Jashington and deplored the fact that
le leading men in the various commu-
nities, respectable and respected
men) were habitually violating the
aw. Of course nothing can be more
demoralizing than this widespread
1sregard of law and, beginning with
fhe Volstead law, it extends to other
aws. But this is the inevitable re.
sult of enacting a law which lacked
the support of a large share of the
most reputable elements in the com-
munity. Warning was given of what
would happen if such a law were en-
acted, and the warning has been veri-
fied. We Presume the President’s ap-
pointees with the $9,000,000, supple-
mented by State legislation and the
police forces of the country, are doing
all that they can—and their futility
is set forth by the President. It is a
question whether the people shall be
made to fit the law or the law chang-
ed to fit the people; whether every
one who takes a drink of anything
stronger than 3 per cent. shall be
shot, or rational legislation shall be
substituted.
The moral and economic results of
the world war call for no action by
Congress because there is nothing that
Congress can do to alter these effects.
It is not certain that joint action by
all the legislative bodies in the world
could do very much. Most of these
results have got to be lived down, and
the world is making fairly good pro-
gress; but the destruction of property
and the disruption of political and
commercial relationships were on an
unprecedented scale, and seed time
and harvest, the collection of raw ma-
terial and the production of finished
goods, the slow and painful extinction
of liabilities, must go on for a long
time before the conditions of a de-
cade ago can be reproduced. In the
meanwhile the President suggests
yy
more financial advances to the farmers |
and a diligent search for more efficient
and less expensive means of getting
farm products to market.
The President thinks the Constitu-
tion could be advantageously amend-
ed to prohibit child labor and to pre-
vent the issue of tax-free securities
and possibly a few other purposes.
In regard to foreign policies he as-
sures the country that the United
States will discharge all its responsi-
bilities to the world, but he indicates
no action in the Near East or else-
where, and he is very certain that the
country will not use force in any
quarter. But the country has used
force in the past, and it may yet heed
the injunction of Theodore Roosevelt
to join with other nations in preserv-
ing the world’s peace by restraining,
with force if need be, any predatory
nation that would precipitate war.
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—Charged with conspiracy and false
pretense, nine men who said they repre-
sented the Altoona Glass Casket corpor-
ation have been indicted in the Blair coun-
ty court. Six are also charged with fraud-
ulent conversion.
—Twenty-five dollars each for thirty-
one ferrets he posessed without a license
was the sentence imposed on P. A. Wol-
fert, of Pittsburgh, owner of a pet shop,
by a justice of the peace. State game war-
den Liphart made the complaint.
—Pickpockets are taking advantage of
the holiday throngs in various cities
throughout the State. More than a dozen
cases have been reported to the Seranton
police within the last day or so, the most
serious being the theft of $4500 from the
pocket of Thomas Shea, of Wilkes-Barre.
—The Philadelphia and Reading Railway
company was made defendant in a damage
suit for $10,000 brought by George Tatles,
of East Lebanon. Last October 15, Harry,
the two year old son of Tatles, wandered
on the railway tracks near his home and
was ground to pieces beneath the wheels
of a freight train.
—Vincenzo Montillo is in a critical con-
dition in the Easton hospital, following a
jump out of a rear window at a South
Side house in that city. He was tied and
locked in a room after a fight while the oc-
cupants of the house went for the police,
who found him lying on the ground. Part
of one of his ears was bitten off in the
fight.
—Frank R. N. Cunningham, former cash-
ier of the Broadtop National bank, at
Hopewell, Bedford county, on Thursday
pleaded guilty to misappropriating $40,-
974.01 and was sentenced in federal court
at Pittsburgh to serve eight months in the
county jail. A statement was made to the
court that much of the money had been
returned to the bank.
—Police are looking for a man who sold
Benjamin Matello, of Hazleton, a bag of
onions for $125 on the claim that they were
bulbs of a wonderful fern that would bring
high prices. The salesman traveled in an
automobile with a New York license num-
ber. Matello is a dairyman and didn’t dis-
cover the deception until he showed some
neighbors the ‘“bulbs.”
—The big plate glass window in the
front of the Mifflin county jewelry store
in Lewistown was broken last Thursday
night and $350 worth of watches, rings
and pearls were stolen. The glass was ev-
idently broken by some one with a padded
brick, but the hole was too small to reach
far back into the window, which is prob-
ably the reason they obtained goods of
such small value.
—Thirty-two agreements for payment of
compensation growing out of the mine fa-
talities at Spangler, Cambria county, have
been approved by the state Compensation
Board, representing $148,680, or an average
of more than $4600 in each case. In the
list were twenty-nine widows, two fathers,
three mothers and eighty-one children un-
der sixteen years of age who lost fathers
or persons upon whom they were depend-
ent in the disaster.
—Coal mined seventy-five years ago is
about to be put on the market. W. H.
Keith, of Minersville, has leased a culm
bank, near Pine Grove, in Schuylkill coun-
ty, containing 100,000 tons of fuel, from
the Lehigh Valley Coal company and is
erecting a breaker to handle 500 tons a
day. The bank was piled up when coal
was plentiful and recklessly wasted, and
is said to contain fuel superior to most of
that being marketed now, being of the fin-
est Lykens valley free-burning red ash.
—Twenty thousand large-sized maps of
Pennsylvania are being prepared for dis-
tribution by the State Forestry Depart-
ment. Twelve thousand of the maps will
be distributed among the public schools of
the State and the balance will be placed in
railroad stations, court houses and other
public places. These maps show public
highways, railroads, canals, state forests,
recreation centers, forest headquarters and
fire observation towers. Regions contain-
ing coal or other minerals are marked.
An innovation is the marking of ancient
frontier forts, such as were located at
Shippensburg, Fort Louden and Cham-
bersburg.
—Charged with embezzling more than
$9000 of postal money order funds and
failing and refusing to account for the
money, Mrs. Irene McDowell Henderson,
postmaster at New Derry, Westmoreland
county, was held for court by United States
Commissioner Ray Patton Smith, of Johns-
town. She furnished bail in the sum of
$3000 for her appearance at the May term
of federal court in Pittsburgh. Mrs. Hen-
derson, before her marriage a short time
ago, was Miss Irene McDowell and was
postmistress at the New Derry office for
almost four years. The shortages in her
accounts cover a period of two years, it
is said. Mrs. Henderson declares that she
cannot account for the shortage.
—Word comes from Sugar Valley, Clin-
ton county, that bituminous coal has been
discovered in that locality. This is in ad-
dition to the five foot vein of anthracite
coal opened up and being developed on the
farm of Perry McCaleb near Tylersville.
In digging deeper an old spring which had
gone dry, near his home, two miles north
of Loganton and one-quarter of a mile
east of the Knarr school house, Andrew G.
Snook, a leading farmer of that section,
dug into an outcropping vein of bitumin-
ous coal. Some of the pieces taken out are
larger than a man’s fist. The coal burns
readily and is pronounced of excellent
quality. Farmer Snook proposes to dig
deeper in order to more fully determine the
extent of the find, but the indications all
point to a vein of substantial size.
—An appeal from the probate of the will
of Mrs. Abigail A. Geisinger, late resident
of Danville, who made possible the Dan-
ville hospital and its endowments, has been
filed in the Orphan’s court of Montour
county by H. Mont Smith, attorney, on be-
half of William Pancoast, of Liberty,
Ohio, and James Hendershott, of Blooms-
burg, first cousins of Mrs. Geisinger. Two
other Ohio heirs, Henry Clay Sharpless
and Celinda Runyon, also first cousins,
have died since the death of Mrs. Geising-
er. Their executors are interested in the
proceedings and it is expected they. will
also join in the contest. The apellants
claim the estate is worth about $3,000,000
and the appeal will be followed by the fil-
ing of the petition outlining the conten-
tion of the heirs that Mrs. Geisinger was
mentally incompetent at the time she made
her will and that undue influence was ex-
erted to procure it. The will gave most of
the estate to the Geisinger hospital and-to
a home for friendless women that she di~
rected to be established.