INK SLINGS.
—O0l4d Senator Moses, the eastern
pilot of the Republican ark, evident-
ly doesn’t view Massachusetts as a
land of promise. His concern as to
what might happen to Hoover in the
“Bay State” is admission that Her-
bert’s got to do a lot of whistling to
keep up his courage.
—We’ll never believe that the
blight killed all the chestnuts in Penn-
sylvania until the publicity depart-
ment of the Pennsylvania State Col-
lege stops sending out stories of the
rattlesnake dinners that forestry
students and nature study clubs of
that institution indulge in.
—We note that Dr. Wm. R. Ham
is in Evanston, Ill., this week for the
opening of the second annual session
of the American Chemical Society.
Dr. Ham, you will recall, is the gen-
tleman who thought Jim Heverly and
the Hon. Holmes hadn’t a chance for
the Republican nomination for the
Legislature last Spring. He knows
more now, however, and how happy
he must be hob-nobbing with the
crowd he belongs to instead of build-
ing political fences in Centre county.
—We like the way George W. Nor-
ris, governor of the federal reserve
bank in Philadeiphia and comptroller
of the currency under President Wil-
son, put it. When asked as to his
opinion of Smith he said. “I think
Governor Smith’s record as Governor
of New York is the best posible guar-
antee that he will make a good Presi-
dent.” You will note that Mr. Nor-
ris expressed no doubt as to who will
win in the coming campaign when he
said “he WILL make a good Presi-
dent.”
—The East Manchester, N. H., ten-
nis club held a lawn fete last week
and instead of advertising ice cream
and cake as the usual inducement
placarded the town with announce-
ments that root beer would be on sale.
Everybody went to investigate the
root beer; among them a young wo-
man worker of the W. C. T. U. and
she made the startling discovery that
the yeast cake usually put into this
concoction had rooted all the root out
and left nothing but a two or three
per cent. beverage that would have
been dumped in the sewer by her pro-
hibition agents had it not all been sold
before she had time to have an an-
alysis made.
——On Tuesday an eminently good
woman called our attention to an in-
cident that we noted at the time but
attached no significance to. She re-
ferred to the prayer meetings that
were held all over the country while
the Houston convention was in ses-
sion. The gatherings of the sincere
but_benighted souls was for the pur-
pose of prayer that Smith would not
be nominated. If those who attended
these metings are real Christians and
have genuine faith in the efficacy of
prayer they know that had the good
Lord believed that Al Smith should
not have been nominated for Presi-
dent by the Democratic party his as-
piration would have failed.—we be-
lieve that. He was named, however, in
spite of their prayers. And what is
the inference?
—We haven’t heard that there was
anything special going on in Belle-
fonte last Saturday night. As we
walked down town Sunday morning
the pavements at three important
street intersections gave repulsive
evidence, however, that a lot of peo-
ple must have been celebrating some-
thing the night before. We say a lot
of people, because we can’t conceive
that it was done by one or two, un-
less they happen to be the champion
long distance regurgitators of all
time. Stretched out and dead to the
world was one of the celebrants, prob-
ably, on the platform in front of the
Pennsylvania railroad station. We
refer to these nasty things because
they are becoming so frequent that
we think it time that those who hoped
that the Volstead law would end
drinking tear the scales from their
eyes and view the situation as it ex-
ists. It hasn’t dont it, so the natural
inference is that there must be
something wrong with the applica-
tion of the law. We have lived in
Bellefonte over half a century. We
went about a bit and knew a few
things long before we were twenty-
one years of age. Our associates were
from every station in life and includ-
ed particularly “Brack” and Jim Pow-
ell, the former a most notorious col-
ored character. And we want to go
on record right here with the asser-
tion that while anyone of this motley
‘mob could have had good liquor for
the asking we don’t believe that more
than five of all the pals of our young
manhood ever thought of such a thing
or had taken a drink. Today, if what
we see and hear indicates anything,
we would be surprised if in any simi-
lar group five young people—and you
can include the girls—can be found
who are not continually planning In
terms of what someone might have
on the hip. We are not advocating
‘the open saloon. We are not spread-
ing propaganda for light wines and
‘beer. We have stated facts, only, and
are trying to show that it is our hon-
est conviction that something is
wrong. We think it a far deeper
question than one as to whether a
man is “wet” or “dry,” yet so many
are obsessed with that idea that they
just can’t give it the unprejudiced
thought that might lead to its ulti-
mate solution.
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 73.
BELLEFONTE. PA.. J U
Pennsylvania a Doubtful State.
When Mayor Mackey warned the
Republicans, of Philadelphia, that in
the event that Governor Smith, »f
New York, were nominated for Presi-
dent by the Democratic party Penn-
sylvania would be a doubtful State,
he was not drawing upon his imagi-
nation. Mr. Mackey expressed his
opinion before either party had chos-
en its candidate and his purpose was
to harm rather than help Mr. Smith’s
aspirations. Developments since the
nominations, however, invest Mr.
Mackey’s prediction with the value of
an inspired prophesy. In every sec-
tion of the State there are signs of
aroused interest and increased activ-
ity among the Democratic voters and
anxiety on the part of the Republi-
can leaders.
The new chairman of the Dems
cratic State committee, John R. Col-
lins, of Potter county, has already
begun to lay lines for an effective and
efficient Democratic organization.
Headquarters have been opened at
Harrisburg and fully equipped for
service, and other preliminary work
is in progress. Absolutely free from
factionalism and enjoying in full
measure the confidence of all party
leaders as well as the rank and file
of the party, he is first and foremost
directing his efforts to harmonizing
as well as mobilizing the forces. It
is realized that bigotry and fanati-
cism will cost the party a few votes
here and there but the spirit of tol-
erance which is spreading with mar-
velous speed will recompense for such
losses by a hundred fold.
There will be no “usual” Republi-
can majority in Philadelphia this
year and Pittsburgh will not stuft
ballot boxes and expand returns after
the old “strip district” fashion. The
Democrats will be alert and militant
in those cities and in the coal re-
gions, where the art of cheating in
elections has been reduced to a
science. It is up to Democrats of
Centre and other counties, where
elections are comparatively honest, to
do their full duty and if this obliga-
tion is met the prediction of Mayor
Mackey will be literally fulfilled.
Chairman Collins is not leaving to
future convenience his part in the
work. He" is doing’ it now and doing
it well. Let us all follow his exam-
ple.
——1It is true that W. P. Gallagher,
of Wilkes-Barre, has been badiy
treated by the Mellon machine and
probably feels resentful. But he is
not likely to assume leadership of
the Pennsylvania Democrats at once.
Tariff Tax Under a New Name.
Dr. Hubert Work, chairman of the
Republican National committee, is
determined to wage the campaign of
this year on the tariff issue. But it
is not the moth-eaten tariff issue
which has served the purpose of fool-
ing some of the people for half a
century. The tariff he has in mind is
one to protect “the great American
pay-roll.” The present tariff has fail-
ed to accomplish that result. With
four million unemployed but willing-
to-work wage earners in the country
it would be absurd to reaffirm a tar-
iff “for the protection of labor.” It
doesn’t measure up to the standard.
It has lost its potency. Having fail-
ed completely to benefit working men
and women it will assume a new dis-
guise.
As a matter of fact the present
tariff law has afforded protection to
the “great American pay-roll’ in re-
cent years but at the expense of the
great American pay-envelope. The
four million idle wage earners will
bear evidence that the pay-roll has
been protected in the hands of the
employers. In the textile mills of
New England and the coal fields of
Pennsylvania the pay-roll has been
practically sequestered ever since the
present tariff law was enacted, in the
hands of the operators of the mills
and mines. Workers in many other
fields of endeavor have suffered from
the operations of tariff of the old
type. Dr. Work probably imagines
that he can fool the people by giv-
ing it a new name.
The Democratic platform pledges
the incoming Democratic administra-
tion to favor a tariff law that “will
permit effective competition, insure
against monopoly and at the same
time produce a fair revenue for the
support of the government.” The
present law, whether it be called by
the old name or the new, fails in all
these respects. It prevents fair
competition, creates monopoly and
robs the people of four billion dollars
annually in order to secure for the
government less than a million dol-
lars in revenue. We realize that there
are more important questions to be
determined by the voters this year.
But the Democrats have nothing to
fear from a full consideration of tar-
iff as an issue.
An Unsolvable Problem.
It is not easy to reason out why
even prohibition fanatics should pre-
fer the attitude in which his party
has placed Herbert Hoover to that
which Governor Smith has assumed
on the question of prohibition en-
forcement. The Republican platform
pledges the party to continued effort
to enforce the Volstead law. Past
effort in that direction, under the
supervision of an administration pro-
fessing sympathy with the law, has
proved futile, if not an absolute fail-
ure. Continued efforts under pre-
cisely similar conditions can hardly
be expected to do better. But that is
all Mr. Hoover can be expected to do,
for it is all his party has promised
for him or for those he represents.
On the other hand Governor Smith
gives positive assurance that he will
support the Eighteenth amendment,
in the event of his election, and en-
force the Volstead law so long as it
remains a law. He realizes that the
- Eighteenth amendment cannot be re-
‘paramount.
pealed but believes it can be enforced.
He is persuaded that legislation can
be devised and enacted which will
fulfill the purpose of the amendment
and suppress the bootleggers without
restoring the saloons. If this result
is possible, and Albert E. Smith is a
marvelously successful executive, .it
will do more for the cause of temper-
ance than the Volstead act has ever
done, with mone of the harm that law
is responsible for.
As a matter of fact it may be said
that opposing Governor Smith on ac-
count of his attitude on prohibition
enforcement is a false pretense ad-
vanced to conceal a more detestable
sin, religious bigotry. No sincere
follower of Thomas Jefferson can con-
sistently share in such a prejudice.
It was he who procured the adoption
of the First amendment to the con-
stitution. His purpose was to pre-
vent for all time the injection of re-
ligious bigotry into the politics of the
country. He anticipated .the danger
and sensed the harm of such an evil
and - those who are now trying to
make religious faith a test of fitness
for any office, under the false pre-
tense of prohibition, are not and nev-
er were Democrats.
——George Bernard Shaw has de-
cided to visit this country nothwith-
standing his repeated declarations
that he never would do so. The lure
of Hollywood has finally intrigued the
foxy old Irishman.
The Kellogg Peace Movement.
Practically all the governments in-
vited to subscribe to Secretary Kel-
logg’s proposition to “renounce war,”
have accepted. Some of them have
set up conditions that indicate re-
luctance. For example, Mr. Cham-
berlain, speaking for Great Britain,
made it clear that her obligation un-
der the covenant of the League of
Nations and the Locarno treaty were
In other words, if the
proposed Kellogg treaty should in any
respect conflict with the provisions of
the League covenant or the Locarno
treaty, in that particular the Kellogg
treaty would not bind the government
of Great Britain. Germany made a
similar statement in its note of ac-
ceptance. Canada alone “cordially”
accepts.
We have previously expressed the
opinion that the main purpose of the
present administration’s activity in
the direction of the Kellogg treaty
was to embarrass the operations of
the League of Nations. The cove-
nant of the League provides every in-
strument and method for outlawing
war that is contained or can be in-
jected into the Kellogg treaty. It is
an active and growing concern and
enjoys the cooperation of all the big
and little nations of the world ex-
cept the United States, and this
country was kept out by the maliz-
nity of a few partisans in Washington
who were envious of the increasing
fame of Woodrow Wilson, who was
largely responsible for its creation.
With the acceptance of practical-
ly all governments invited the Kel-
logg enterprise may be regarded as
accomplished. What good will come
of it remains to be seen. But the ex-
pectation that it will alienate mem-
bers of the League of Nations will
be disappointed. Nearly all who ac-
cepted Mr. Kellogg’s invitation have
affirmed their fidelity to the older
and more comprehensive organization.
Harry Sinclair made Secretary Fall
pretend to believe that minor opera-
tions adjacent to Teapot Dome would
“drain” the oil from that government
reserve. Some malicious men may
have convinced Coolidge and Kellogg
that the League of Nations could be
crippled in the same way, but they
are sadly mistaken.
——Jules Verne may have been all
right in his time but as a world gird-
ler he was a rank piker.
Mr. McSparran’s Absurd Suggestion.
Mr. John A. McSparran, of Lan-
caster county, who was one of five
out of seventy-six and one of about
100 out of a total of 1100 delegates
in the Houston convention who voted
against the nomination of Governor
mith, for President, has availed him-
If of the first opportunity to advise
e chairman of the Democratic Na-
fional committee on the conduct of
the campaign. It is hardly necessary
to state that his recommendations
were entirely ignored and yet it may
be assumed that they fulfilled the
purpose Mr. McSparran had in mind.
His letter to chairman Raskob got his
name on the front page of nearly
every Republican newspaper in Penn-
sylvania.
Mr. McSparran is a glutton for
publicity and a form letter sent by
chairman Raskob to every delegate
in the Houston convention gave him
a chance to parade his abnormal egn-
ism. His recommendation was that
Mr. Raskob resign the chairmanship
of the National committee and that
Governor Smith withdraw as candi-
date for President. Considering that
Mr. Smith was chosen as the candi-
jdate by an overwhelming majority
‘of the delegates in the convention on
the first ballot and that Mr. Raskob
was elected by the unanimous voice
,of the members of the National com-
mittee, that suggestion, coming from
,a minority so small that it could be
seen only through a microscope, was
‘at least surprising.
Every member of the Houston con-
vention knew in advance of the bal-
loting Governor Smith’s attitude on
,the Volstead law. He had frankly
declared it in answer to a question
| brought out by a statement of Na-
‘tional committeeman Mack, of New
York. Partly because of his atti-
tude on that subject and partly be-
“cause of a less worthy reason, Mr.
| McSparran voted against him, which
he had a right to do. But in the ratio
of nearly one hundred to one the
convention voted for him in the full
‘light of knowledge, and a request
that he withdraw coming from a self-
, appointed representative of a meager
' minority appears very much like an
exibition. of impudent assurance.
——Bellefonte can make up its
mind that the streets that are now
being dug up by the Central Pennsyl-
vania Gas Co. will not be back to
their regular, normal surface in less
than three years. No matter how
carefully the filling is done, even if
it is watered and tamped with che
greatest care depressions will come
along the pipe line for several years.
We call attention to this now so that
when some one starts “crabbing” next
spring or the next you can say: Yes,
I knew that would be the result as
soon as I heard that the franchise had
been given. We want to add, too,
that we have rarely seen .that kind of
street work done with greater dis-
of those who might be inconvenienced
by it. We don’t know who is in charge
of the work, but whoever he is he
knows his business and is doing a job
that any supervisor might be proud
of. Another compensating feature of
the enterprise beside securing a most
desirable public utility is that it is
giving employment to a small army
of men who would otherwise probably
be out of employment. Labor, no
matter what kind it is, produces
wealth and the community that is for-
tunate enough to have its labor pro-
ductive, especially when times are not
so good, should congratulate itself
rather than view temporary .incon-
venience as something to give: every-
body h about.
——When the five gentleman of
council who voted to permit a filling
station at the corner of Allegheny
and Howard streets can convince the
home owners in that section that they
would have voted to grant such a per-
mit in front of their own homes they
will probably redeem themselves in
the minds of those for whom they
seem to have had little consideration.
——Henry Clay Hansbrough, form-
er United States Senator from North
Dakota, is organizing a Smith club.
Though a Republican he declares the
election of Governor Smith “is im-
perative if agriculture is to be sav-
ed from a state of peasantry.”
——Postmaster General New says
he will dismiss any postmasters in the
South who paid politicians for their
commissions. The politicians who
forced the payments will go unpun-
ished. This is the Indiana idea of
justice. ;
——There is some comfort in the
thought that Herbert Hoover’s pussy-
footing days are drawing to a close.
After his notification he will have to
express some kind of an opinion on
current questions.
LY 27. 1928.
patch or more courteous consideration i
NO. 29.
Profitable Swindles In and Out of
Politics.
From the Philadelphia Record.
When we read in the newspapers
that an American has received a let-
ter from a Spanish prison inmate who
has secretly buried a treasure which
he will divide with his correspondent
in the United States if the latter will
finance its recovery, and that our fel-
low-citizen has swallowed the bait
and lost his money, we marvel that
any one could believe the Spanish
prisoner’s preposterous tale. Yet the
so-called “Spanish prisoner swindle”
has been successfully worked in this
country every year for over 40 years.
When we hear that two men, find-
ing a pocketbook filled with a large
sum of money, have accosted a third
and offered to divide their find with
him, and have proposed to leave the
whole of it in his keeping temporar-
ily if he will put up a few hundred
dollars as security, and that, having
put up the security, the holder of the
pocketbook discovers it to be filled
not with the money he saw there, but
with waste paper, we smile. For this
trick is as old as the hills, but its new
victims are annually numbered by
hundreds.
When we learn that the inventor
of a machine which will convert plain,
white paper into $20 bills has demon-
strated its operation to a prospective
purchaser and sold it to him at a high
price we wonder how the dupe, who
must be utterly devoid of brains, ever
managed to accumulate the sum of
which he has been deprived by a
particularly transparent bit of ho-
kum. Yet there is a constant market
for these money-making machines.
After all, there is no great differ-
ence between the victims of the Span-
ish prisoner, pocketbook, money-mak-
ing machine and other oft-exposed
swindles and the estimable but too-
confiding citizens who allow them-
selves to be persuaded every four
years that the installation of a Demo-
cratic President in the White House
would be ruinous to business.
The object of the persuaders in
both cases is personal financial ad-
vantage. In the political case this
advantage consists of the privilege
of making laws from which the per-
suaders will profit at the expense of
the persuaded.
We believe that Republican calam-
ity howling will not be as successful
this year as in Sommer jb esidential
years, even thoug crop of victims
- of other swindles shows no Sigfis of
| decrease. For the next three months
will witness an unprecedented cam-
paign of political education, in which
the Democratic party will make it
clear to every voter that the appli-
cation of its principles will advance
the material as well as the normal
welfare of the country. The illusion
that the Republicans monopolize the
patriotism, business sagacity and
governmental capacity of the United
States is going to be brought out of
the spirit cabinet and examined in
the clear light of day.
|
A Change of View.
From the Harrisburg Telegraph.
| Before Mexico, blood-drenched and
war-devastated, can hope for material-
ly better conditions the whole view-
point of the public must be changed.
When Roosevelt was running for
the Presidency after having been ele-
vated to the White House by the
. death of McKinley, a friend of the
writer and an ardent admirer of the
Rough Rider was engaged in mining
work in Mexico. Daily he discussed
with his wealthy employer the merits
of the campaign. Finally the Mexi-
can said: “But why worry? Your
friend Roosevelt is in office, he con-
trols the army and that makes his
re-election certain, doesn’t it?” He
couldn’t understand that one holding
- power he desired to retain would will-
tingly relinquish it without a show of
force.
A lot of water has run down the
| Rio Grande since then, but the Mexi-
| can has not yet got a true vision of
popular government. Indeed, Mexi-
| €0 never has had popular govern-
iment as we know it. Conditions are
such that it may be many, many
years before that happens. Mean-
while, if there is such an animal, the
country may prosper more under a
beneficient despot than under present
conditions. But fundamental to a fin-
al settlement of Mexico’s internal
troubles is freedom of thought nur-
tured in well-equipped public schools
and a patriotism that puts public in-
terest before personal aggrandize-
| ment.
The assassination of Obregon
| probably has set Mexico back five or
more years in its program of prog-
| Tess.
A Delegate of 28 Years Ago.
From the Kansas City Star.
He would never have heard of the
radio, or the movie, or the airplane,
or the disk phonograph, or the tract-
or, or the Federal Reserve system, or
insulin, or 606, or relativity, or elec-
trons, or the Volstead act, or the
Nineteenth amendment, or bobbed
hair. Even the word “automobile”
would have been unfamiliar to him.
He would have known of Theodore
Roosevelt only as a promising young
New York politician; of Woodrdw
Wilson only as a professor in Prince-
ton College. He would have heard of
Lloyd George, but not of Foch, cr
Pershing, or Ludendorff, or Mussolini,
or Lenin, or Al Smith, or Herbert
Hoover.
‘{ found it open and empty.
ee
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE
—"“This safe is open. Don’t crack it.”
Burglars found this message posted on
| the safe when they broke into the office
of the Texas Oil company, in Lancaster.
Apparently they believed in signs, for they
{ turned the handle of the strong box and
A small wood-
‘en box in the safe was smashed.
—James Thompson, 55, sat on the porch
roof of his home at Lost Creek, near
Pottsville, on Sunday, watching a base-
ball game across the road. The home team
| was behind when it entered the seventh
inning and scored two runs. Thompson
became excited, cheered and fell off the
roof. He was taken to the Ashland hos-
pital where he died a few hours later
from a fractured skull.
—William Albright and J. P. Lynch,
tinsmiths in the Pennsylvania railroad
shops, at Renovo, have been presented
with fifty-year buttons by H. H. Russell,
division superintendent. Mr. Albright be-
gan to work for the railroad company at
the age of 13 years, and has served fifty-
one years consecutively in its employ, and
Mr. Lynch, who began work for the com-
pany when 16 years of age, has been for
fifty years an employee of the company.
—Four hours and 25 minutes was re-
quired to convert standing wheat into
chocolate cake in the so-called Lancaster
county pastry derby. The wheat was cut
and threshed in a field near Lancaster.
Carried by trucks to a nearby mill, ground
into flour and carried by automobile to a
bakery where the bakers prepared the
batter in 15 minutes. Fourteen minutes
after the batter was completed four cakes,
each three feet square, were ready for
chocolate icing.
—Police are investigating the recent
hold-up of a truck laden with silk from
the Schwarzenbach-Huber silk mills, at
Columbia, Pa. The cargo was on its way
to the main mills of the company at Union
City, N. J., when it was held up by eight
men at Malvern and stolen. Later the en-
tire load of silk and the truck were recov-
ered at Wayne, where it had evidently
been abandoned by the holdup men. It
is presumed that the yeggmen were hi-
jackers who believed the truck was laden
with beer.
—A lone masked bandit, flourishing an
automatic pistol, held up a crew and pas-
sengers of a Nanticoke trolley car early
on Sunday, at a lonely point in Hanover
township, Luzerne county. Conductor
David Daniels, motorman Harry Cool-
baugh and five passengers were held at
bay by the robber, who fled after getting
$70, the day's receipts, turned over by
conductor Daniels. The bandit boarded
the car at an isolated spot and did not
put on a mask until after he had taken
a seat in the rear.
—Honor is its own reward, according
to Motorcycle Policeman Carter, of Phila-
delphia, who found a bag containing’ $5,000
in cash. He returned it to the owner and
refused a reward. Miss Reta Lewis, of
Merchantville, N. J., after visiting friends,
placed the money satchel on the running
board of her automobile while saying
good-bye, forgot it, drove away and lost
the bag. While she was in a police sta-
tion reporting the loss, the patrolman ap-
peared with the missing bag and the sub-
sequent reward was refused.
—Although most persons have submit-
ted to vaccination and the situation is
described as well in hand, the danger from
the spread of the smallpox epidemic df%-
covered in the vicinity of the State Line
in Franklin county is not past, Dr. F. E.
Coughlin of the State Health Department
said this week. Dr. Coughlin, who has
been directing the control work which the
Pennsylvania authorities have been carry-
ing on in co-operation with Maryland
health authorities, asserted several hun-
dred residents of Antrim township have
been vaccinated thus far.
—John Wert, 22 years old, of Lewis-
town, is recovering from an attempt at
suicide in the Mifflin county jail when he
punctured his right lower abdomen with
a table knife. Guards will be placed
about Wert in the Lewistown hospital to
prevent further attempts at self destruc-
tion. Wert attempted suicide by shoot-
ing himself in the chest with a revolver
of twenty-two caliber some time ago when
he said he was in love and the woman of
his choice had turned him down. Sheriff
William H. Printz said he believes both
attempts were merely made to obtain
sympathy.
—Farm labor in Pennsylvania on July 1
was being paid the lowest wage with
board since 1923. Average figures furnish-
ed by the Federal-State Crop Reporting
Service were: Per month with board,
$39.25; per month without board, $58.75;
per day with board, $2.45; per day with-
out board, $3.25. The supply of farm
labor on July 1 is given as 91 per cent.
of normal, which is an increase of eight
points over the same date a year ago. The
demand, on the other hand, is only 85 per
cent. of normal, a decrease of four points
from a year ago. Farm wages are re-
ported as the lowest in Pennsylvania of
any of the States in the northeastern sec-
tion of the country.
—Jesse Hassinger, of Milroy, one of the
trappers for the State Game Commission,
went to Lewistown after capturing the
last of the three beavers which were re-
sponsible for the flooding of 1000 acres
of forest lands, in the Seven Mountains,
near the Bear Meadows, a section of pub-
lic road that was running two feet under
water, and wrought general havoc to that
section. The beavers dammed a small
mountain stream, which overflowed into
the meadows. Two of the animals were
taken last week. The third, a last year's
male pup, was captured later. After be-
ing exhibited at fairs this summer and
fall, the three animals will be placed in
some other section of the Seven Mountains
for breeding purposes.
—If Clinton Fritz, of Pottstown, is to be
believed, the snake he saw while helping
to make hay on the farm of Frank David-
heiser, at Glasgow, is the largest that has
ever been seen in those parts, and is sim-
ilar in size only to those seen in the Phila-
delphia Zoo. He claims that he saw a
snake that in size resembled a python, and
said it was a blacksnake. “If it was a
foot long,” says Fritz, “it was 15 feet in
length, with a head as big as a man’s two
fists. Its body was as thick as a stove-
pipe. Some snake!” There were four men
working in the hay field, and, although
armed with pitchforks, the snake was of
such size that they feared to attack it.
Persons acquainted with snake lore say
that they usually travel in pairs, so ac-
cording to that there must be two of that
gize. Farmers in that vicinity are keep-
ing close watch om their young shoafs.