Bement ———— INK SLINGS. —A New Jersey jury acquitted man charged with stealing two pigs because he claimed they were his own and identified them by their squeal. What do you think of that? It’s usually the “squeal” that convicts a fellow. —According to the Supreme court of the District of Columbia, a lie isn’t a lie unless one tells it to a suf- ficiently large number of people. Re- member this, liars, your reputation is at stake and youd better use a Mike the next time you want to tell one or you can’t claim any credit for it at all. —We have a special concern for the recovery of King George of Eng- land. We have long believed that his oldest son would far rather remain what he is than have to ascend the throne of the British Empire and it would be right mean of George V to croak and force Wales to give up what he so evidently prefers to the King business. —Yesterday was Thanksgiving day and while acquaintances might have thought we didn’t have much to be grateful for we know, better than they, that we did. And one of the things that we gave thanks for is the endowment of courage that keeps us true to our conscience and true to the ideals of this old paper. During this year more people, than in any other year of the Watchman’s history, have discovered that it can’t be bought, bullied or cajoled into any other course than the one it believes to be right. —The foot-ball season being over what in the world will there be for the school children and the college boys to do until the basket ball sea- son opens ? We know their parents will enjoy the respite from continu- ous importunities for contributions to the support of the team and for fares so that the kids can accompany it on trips and thereby escape the unfair accusation that they are not loyal, but what do the parents amount to these days ? Youth must have its fling. And it doesn’t give a hang about how the old folks have to Scrape and pinch as a consequence. —Centre county bankers are dis- cussing the advisability of making a service charge to those of their pa- trons who do not maintain an average ~monthly balance of one hundred dol- lars. Of course they are only discus- sing it, but you know what that means. Whether it is done now or some time in the future, it is bound to come, for it has long been known that banks have been handling small’ ‘open accounts at a loss for years. And sixty per cent. of the average bank accounts come under this class- ification. Gosh, what a kick there’ll be when the charge is made. We'll not join the chorus, however. We're too puffed up at learning that there are so many others in our own class that we’ll pay without shootin’ even a dirty look across the counter. Think of the satisfaction of being with the crowd for once. We rarely get with it politically, but figures prove that we’fe right in the thick of it finan- cially. —Years ago, in a little church up in Ferguson township, we went to Sunday school during the summer months we spent on the ancestral farm. A saintly, rugged old gentle- man named Pennington taught the class we were in and dispensed pink tickets and blue tickets to those of the boys who could recite the “Gold- en Text” and designated verses from the Bible. So many blue tickets got a pink ticket and so many pink tick- ets got a Testament. We never heard of anybody getting a Testament. Pos- sibly there were no boys good enough to get enough pink tickets. Possibly we left the neighborhood before the Testaments were awarded. However that may have been the whole scheme had the appearance of a three-shell game to us and we never entered the competition with much fervor. If memory isn’t playing tricks with us we never became proprietor of more than one pink ticket. We got some- thing else out of that class, however. It was a pet phrase of dear old Mr. Pennington to the effect that: “the devil finds work for idle hands to do.” Years have gone since then and we've been so busy all of the intervening time that we've never been in posi- tion, personally, to prove the truth or fallacy of our early day teacher's epigram. There might be something in it. Almost we have reached the conclusion that there is. For last Friday a gentleman from Centre Hall who recently sold out his business, after years of continuous application to it, dropped in for a little chat with us. He hasn’t a thing in the world to do—lucky dog—has plenty to live on all the rest of his life—whole pack of lucky dogs—so he just stood look- ing from our office window at the big trout in Spring creek. He looked and looked. There was no thought of how to meet a note in bank or scrape up enough for the monthly pay roll to detract from the wonder of the sight he was seeing. His mind was unperturbed and his hands idle. Then he turned to us and said : “How easy it would be to throw a line in there any night and pull out a mess of those big fellows.” After that can you wonder why we have thought there might have been something in Mr. Pennington’s “the devil finds work for idle hands to do?” VOL. 73. Mayor Mackey Defies Boss Vare. Mayor Mackey, of Philadelphia, has finally defied boss Vare. After a long period of dickering and dodg- ing he dismissed Harry C. Davis from his office of Director of Public: Safe- ty on Friday last, and appointed as- sistant district attorney Lemuel B. Schofield to fill the vacancy. During his campaign for election Mr. Mack- ey publicly declared his purpose to organize an administration of practi- cal politicians. In pursuance of that pledge he named Mr. Davis head of the police force and created police districts that vested in the ward bosses absolute control of police ac- tivities. As might have been expect- ed, an orgie of graft set in and con- tinued until an honest judge demand- ed a check and an honest district at- torney began a crusade against vice and crime. As the work of district attorney Monahan exposed a partnership be- tween the ward bosses, the police of- ficials and the criminal gangs, Mayor Mackey became alarmed, not for the city but for himself, and after sus- pending a few accused police captains appealed to director Davis to resign. At this stage of the proceedings Boss Vare intervened. Davis is his polit- ical and personal friend and must not be sacrificed, he declared. “I am still the boss,” he said, and thus created a dilemma. The Mayor se- cretly visited him in Atlantic City and argued the matter, but the boss was obdurate. Finally the Mayor, driven aroused public sentiment, “took the bit in his teeth” and “accepted Davis’ resignation.” Altogether it is a curious mix up of crime, fear and friendship. The jur- ist who has repeatedly stated that “Davis is unfit to hold any public of- fice” qualifies his arraignment by as- surances, as. the late Mr. Dana would put it, of “his distinguished consides- ation.” The Mayor cheerfully testi- fies to his integrity, ability and fidel- ity. The district attorney reveals a bleeding heart because of his separa- tion, officially, from so honest and capable a fellow worker in the cause of righteousness. Only boss. Vare protests against the cruelty involved and is willing to face popular indig- nation to prove his friendship. The interests of the organization are im- portant to him as well as to the oth- ers, but friendship is a deeper and finer emotion. A —————