| — The size of the wicker furni-
ture on the sun porch doesn’t reflect
the importance of those who loll in it.
| — Connie Mack doesn’t give the |
public a hopeful view of the future |
“achievements of the Athletics. Prob- |
ably he is only preparing for an
agreeable surprise next fall
—Of course it is none of our busi-
ness but we would just love to know
what was in the bottle Mrs. Pinchot
thought she had in hand when she
started drinking that hair tonic.
— The attempt to “bomb” Gover-
nor Roosevelt and the burning of nis
son-in-law’s home indicates that
somebody has a real grievance
against that superb Democratic
statesman.
— The two Congressmen accused
(of smuggling liquor into the United
States deny “the soft impeachment.”
A judicial investigation may deter-
mine whether they “are sinnec
against or sinning.”
Edward E. Beidleman, Republi-
.can leader of Dauphin county, a clev-
er lawyer and a mighty likable fel-
‘low, is dead. He didn’t tarry long
.after his friend Harry Baker went
on the great adventure and we hope
that both of them have found an
eternity of happy days.
—A new spirit has edged into the
group around the Republican camp-
fire on the Styx. We can almost see
«Quay, Cooper, Penrose, Elkins, Crow,
Lane and Baker edging up to make
room for “Eddie” Beidleman and how
the old fellows will twit him for per-
mitting himself to be counted out of
that gubernatorial nomination In
1926.
FE. J. A. writes from Cleveland,
Ohio, that “when I settle myself in
my easy. chair, Friday nights, with my
Watch man I am happy because its a
man I can always trust.” Of course
we don’t want to shatter the lady’s
faith in her gentleman friend, but we
do feel it our duty to advise caution,
because the Watch man knows a lot
about forms and how to press them
Just right.
—Harry F. Sinclair, oil magnate,
has lost his last appeal and must go
to jail for three months. Harry is
said to be worth a hundred million.
Men who accumulate much money in-
variably do so because they love the
game of getting it. The zest for ac-
cumulating makes a loss more serious
to some of them than it is to one who
hasn’t the competitive spirit in the
game of riches. We know some to
whom Sinclair's five hundred dollar
fine would be more punishment than
his three month’s in jail. ;
—In New York Jimmy Walker had
to get Grover Whalen to do the “glad
to see you” act for the city. Our
ubiquitous Mayor needs no pinch
hitter when celebrities arrive. He is
right on the job tendering the keys
to the community and effervescing
pleasantries—and they must be some
pleasantries for, on Monday night,
Amelia Earhart, trans-Atlantic flier,
passed up a dozen or more invitations
of consequence to go motoring witn
our Mayor. She didn’t do that for
Grover when she arrived in New
York.
——On pages 6 and 7 of this issue
the auditors’ statement of the busi-
ness of Centre county for the year
1928 will be found. Every tax payer
in the county should be interested in
the details set forth therein. While
we have not had time to aralyze it
a glance at the total expenditures, as
ccmpared with those of 1927, shows
that the cost of our county govern-
ment has increased alout sixty-
thousand dollars during the year.
Several factors have contributed to
this advance, some of them necessi-
tated by new laws and others are
items of doubtful necessity. The
steadily mounting cost of conducting
the county's business is a matter
that should be given the serious
thought of those who have the bills
to pay, for it is a certainty that taxes,
instead of being reduced, must be in-
creased if expenses continue to grow
as they have during 1928.
— Several weeks ago we advised
those opposed to the extra cent gas-
oline tax to write to our Senator and
Representative in Harrisburg and
urge them to vote against the bill
authorizing it. Mr. Holmes voted for
the bill in the House, so we infer that
not enough of his constituents advis-
ed him of their opposition to make
him feel that there is any consider-
able opposition to it. There is an-
other bill that might get out of the
committee to which it was referred
that is far more dangerous than any
that has been before the Legislature
in years. It is Senate bill, No. 537,
granting the right of eminent domain
to telegraph and telephone compa-
nies. Any property owner in Centre
county who is not opposed to such
legislation needs a lunacy commission.
Senator Scott or the Hon. Holmes
might vote for it, should it be
brought out of committee. So we
would advise you to let them know
that you are not ir favor of legisla-
tion that would permit the erection of
wire lines all over your premises and
permit others to say what damages
had been done on your property. We
have scunded the warning, so don’t
say that the Watchman wasn’t on the
look out for your interests if this
piece of usurpating legislation be-
comes law.
Jutchman;
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 74
Mr. Wilson is Confident.
William B. Wilson, who was the
Democratic candidate for Senator in
Congress in 1926, approaches the fin-
al stage of his contest for that seat
in full confidence of success. He is
now in Washington for the purpose
of presenting the final argument be-
fore the sub-committee of the Senate
Committee on Privileges and Elec-
tions. “We have completed the col-
lection of evidence,” he said to a re-
porter for the Associated Press the
other day, “and it shows conclusively
that fraud was so widespread in Phil-
adelphia and Pittsburgh that the le-
gal votes cannot be separated from the
illegal. Therefore we contend that
the entire vote of those cities should
be thrown out.”
It is a well-established principle
of law that deliberate fraud vitiates
everything it touches. The evidence
to which Mr. Wilson refers is that ob-
tained in the investigations of the
Slush Fund committee of the Senat®
and that revealed before the sub-
committee of the Committee on Priv-
ileges and Elections. In both cases
the most startling frauds were ex:
posed by witnesses who supported
Mr. Vare, and it is practically cer-
tain that if Mr. Cunningham had
answered relevant questions put te
him it would have been shown that a
considerable portion of the vast
fund collected and expended in the
interest of Vare was acquired by lev-
ies on the criminals of Philadelphia
under pledge of protection.
If the entire vote of Pittsburgh and
Philadelphia is thrown out Mr. Wil-
son will have a majority of more than
100,000. If it were possible to sepa-
rate the fraudulent from the honest
votes in those cities and give to Vare
all that belonged to him, Wilson
would still have a considerable ma-
jority. Omitting the Vare majority
in Allegheny county Wilson had a
majority of . approximately 100,000
outside of Philadelphia and including
the Allegheny county vote, but ex-
cluding that of Philadelphia Wilson's
majority would be close to 50,000.
But even in the face of these facts
it requires a good deal of optimism
to hope for a favorable report from
the Senate Committee on Privileges
and Elections.
ce——— ee —
— The fact has been revealed that
the Pittsburgh Plate Glass corpora-
tion is offering to sell its products in
Canada at a good deal less price than
it exacts from American consumers,
while Uncle Andy Mellon, who cou-
trols the Pittsburgh corporation, is
demanding increased tariff taxes on |
plate glass.
Social War in Washington.
President Hoover may be able to
solve the farm relief problem in a
fashion which will fool the farmers
of the corn belt and he may possibly
satisfy the bootleggers and the Anti-
Saloon League in the matter of law
enforcement. But he has a problem
on hands now that will tax his in-
genuity to the limit. It is the ques-
tion of precedence at social functions
at the National capital. This ques-
tion involves the pride and prejudices
of the women of the official social set,
and however it may be settled there
will be created irreconcilable enmi-
ties. Former Secretary of State
Kellogg tried to assume the burden
of disposing of it but, as usual, he
made a muddle of the job.
Vice President Curtis is a widower
and his sister, Mrs. Edward E. Gann,
is mistress of his social establish-
ment. The question is as to her place
at the table. If his wife were living
she would rank next to the wife of
the President. But Mr. Kellogg de-
cided that the wives of Ambassadors
are entitled to precedence over Mrs.
Gann, and hence the social disturb- |
ance. The Vice President has ap-!
pealed from the decision of Kellogg
and asked his successor in office, Mr.
Stimson, who is investigating the sub-
ject, to issue a reverse order. Mean- |
time all the hosts and hostesses in the
city are in a state of terror. One
authority on the subject declares that
the penalty of an error is “social
death.”
Charlie Curtis makes no claim to
be an expert on social etiquette. Out
in Kansas, where he was born and
bred, such questions are not given
much consideration. During his many |
years in official life in Washington he
was entirely satisfied to be called a |
fairly good parliamentarian and the |
very best poker . player in Congress. |
But his sister is of a different mind,
on the subject, and as she is a half |
Indian, objects to seeing her scalp
dangling at the belt of a social rival no |
better qualified to reign as queen of |
the feast than herself. The discussion
of the subject has created great in-
terest among the social leaders in |
Washington and it is to be hoped will
be settled without bloodshed. . + |
|
i
|
BELLEFON
Ballot Reform Bills Stifled?
The present session of the Gener-
al Assembly will adjourn
Thursday. - That is, there are only
three legislative days between the as-
sembling on Monday evening and the
end of the session. During that brief
period confusion will be the “order
of the day.” Pet measures of the
machine will be forced to the front
and log-rolling and jockeying for
place will absorb the energies of the
Legislature, and measures which have
no recommendation except merit wiil
be lost in the shuffle. The closing
days of a legislative session are more
like the excesses of a frenzied mob
than the proceedings of a delibera-
tive body. This is especially true of
the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Within a week from the time fixed
for presenting bills in the present
session twelve or fifteen bills in the
interest of electoral reform were pre-
sented. These measures were the
fruits of careful investigation, made
by men and women of high character
and lofty purposes, covering a per-
jod of six years. They were recom-
mended to prompt consideration as
essential to honest elections and just
government. The leaders of the dom-
inant party which controlled the de-
liberations of the session made false
pretense of favoring all, or nearly
all, these measures. But only one,
the voting machine enabling act, was
considered and it was so mutilated
as to make its value questionable.
There is but one inference to be
drawn from these facts. That is that
the leaders of the Republican party
in Pennsylvania don’t want honest
elections. 'W. L. Mellon, Joseph R.
Grundy and Governor Fisher could
have had every one of these bills en-
acted into law if they had expressed
such a desire. Such servility to bosses
has never been known, and no bosses
have ever before revealed such indif-
ference to moral obligations. The
voting machine enabling act will do
some good though the purpose of its
multilation was to minimize that re-
sult. But the failure to pass the
other measures will make ballot box”
stuffing, vote stealing and other
crimes prosperous industries for some
time.
| The mob which attacked dry
agents at Bethlehem, the other day,
must have been made up of the boot-
leggers who carried Northampton
county for Hoover last fall.
TE. PA., APRIL 12
|
i
Sinclair and Then Cunningham.
Harry F. Sinclair will have to go
finally next to jail. In this case justice “travel-
ed on a leaden heel” and “struck with
a velvet hand.” In March, 1924, he
refused to answer pertinent ques-
tions put to him by a Special com-
mittee of the Senate and was arrang-
ed in the Supreme court of the Dis-
trict of Columbia for contempt. That
court pronounced him guilty and he
appealed to the Supreme court of the
United States which has now unani-
mously affirmed the verdict of the
lower tribunal. He will now have
the right to ask for a rehearing and
will avail himself of that time con-
suming process but with little expec-
tation of success. Such appeals have
rarely been granted in the past.
The decision is of great public im-
portance because it demonstrates that
even ‘“malefactors of great wealth”
may be brought to punishment for
violation of law. Mr. Sinclair had
openly adopted the opposite view of
this subject. He arrogantly parad-
ed his wealth and defied the law. He
even invaded the “temples of justice”
and established a system of espion-
age on juries organized to pass upon
his conduct. He obtained verdicts in
his favor by mysterious methods and
almost persuaded many minds that
money guarantees immunity from
penalties. The decision of the court,
handed down on Monday, will in part,
at least, remove this mischievous no-
tion. Sinclair, notwithstanding his
millions, will go to jail.
‘The people of Pennsylvania have a
special interest in this judicial de-
termination. For years the govern-
ment and policies of the State have
‘been controlled by a group of un-
scrupulous millionaires who flout the
law. One of the emissaries of this
group is unger indictment in the Dis-
trict of Columbia court for precisely
the same offense as that which has
brought Harry Sinclair to a jail sen-
tence. During the investigation of
the Vare case in the Senate Thomas
Cunningham defied the officers of the
law and laughed at their failures to
apprehend ‘him. He relied upon the
potency of Sinclair's money to secure
his own immunity and now that Sin-
clair has failed Cunningham will be
brought to justice.
Our Partnership in Crime.
The partnership between politics
and crime seems to have taken in a
new member and increased its work-
ing capital. In its original form it
was able to protect criminals, de-
bauch elections and exploit the public
in various and sinister ways. But it
was not all-powerful. It encountered
a snag now and then which defeat-
ed its purpose. The refusal to admit
William S. Vare to a seat in the Sen-
ate which the partnership had procur-
ed for him hy bribery and corruption
suggested the necessity of increasing
its power. There was something the
matter with the ‘machinery. There
was a weakness somewhere that re-
quired strengthening.
In this predicament the partner-
ship made a survey and found the
trouble. The underworld and the
machine politicians discovered that it
needed more force and more capital
and invited the State administration
to come in “on the ground floor.” The
administration had troubles of its
own and was willing to take a
chance. The machine was threaten-
ed with annihilation. The adminis-
tration was in imminent danger of
a rebuke. For some inexplicable rea-
son it wanted to increase the gaso-
line tax. The underworld wanted a
| renewal of its license to loot, murder
They “pooled their is- |
and pillage.
sues” and the tax bill was passed
——There have been a good many
surprises during the present session
of the Legislature, and Senator Buck-
man seems to have developed the last
one.
Cunningham Case Coming to Trial.
The case of Thomas W. Cunning-
ham, sheriff of Philadelphia county,
will be argued before the Supreme
court in Washington on the 22nd day
of April. Briefs were submitted by
Attorney General Mitchell and for-
mer Attorney General George W.
Wickersham a week ago. It is the
first step in the reopening of the Vare
effort to break into the Senate. In
his testimony before the Slush Fund
committee, two years ago, Cunning-
ham testified that he had contributed
$50,000 to the Vare slush fund but
refused to tell where he got the mon-
ey. Because of this the Senate com-
mittee declared him in contempt.
Subsequently the Circuit court, sit-
ting in Philadelphia, decided that the
committee had exceeded its authority.
At the time, and for some years
previous, Mr. Cunningham was clerk
of courts in Philadelphia, earning a
salary of $8000 a year and obviously
unable to contribute so liberally from
his own resources. The presumption
was, therefore, that the money had
been obtained by levying on the
municipal officials of that city, which
was contrary to law, or by exacting
contributions from the bootleggers
~and criminals, which is repugnant to
while the measure to protect the peo- |
ple from criminals was strangled. |
So flagrant an outrage against the
people of Pennsylvania was never at-
tempted before. Without the help of
the administration the Woodward bill
providing for the reorganization of
have been defeated. Without the
the police of Philadelphia could not
help of corrupt politicians the in-
crease of the gasoline tax could not
have been enacted. The administra-
tion knew that public opinion was,
and is, overwhelmingly against the
increase. It must have known that
such an increase was not necessary
and that taking money from the peo-
ple to create treasury surplusses or
indulge in profligate enterprises is
larceny. But the administration join-
ed the partnership for a sinister pur-
pose.
————— A ——— ’
——Professor Dutcher may be cor:
rect in his statement that there is
no such malady as spring fever, but
he has to show us.
i
|
|
|
every principle of morality. In the
circumstances the questions were en-
tirely relevant and his refusal to an-
swer was contemptuous. The Senate
committee accordingly cited him to
answer the charge of contempt in the
Supreme court of the District of
Columbia.
There were abundant reasons and
ample precedent for the action of the
Senate committee. In a precisely
similar situation the Supreme court
of the United States compelled Mal
Daugherty, of Ohio, brother of the
then Attorney General of the United
States, to submit the books of a bank
of which he was president, and there
can be no doubt that following the
same line of reasoning Mr. Cunning-
ham will be compelled to reveal the
source of his contribution to the Vare
slush fund or pay the penalty which
is a term in prison. © Such an issue
of the controversy ought to be wel-
comed by the people of Pennsylvania
because it will teach the . arrogant
bosses, intoxicated with power, that
they are amenable to law.
—Read the Watchman for the news
. 1929.
NO. 15.
THE OLE TROUT HOLE.
I don’t know what's got over me,
It seems I can't sit still.
My wife says, ‘What's the matter John?" |
You look pale around the gill.
I wander down, to the barn yard gate,
An’ gaze at the meadow green.
An’ I feel a strange uneasy thrill,
As I list, to the murmuring stream.
An’ then in the clear, an’ silent depth,
Of the forest sweet, an’ cool.
I see a spotted form flash by,
Deep down in the Ole Trout Pool.
I dash for the house, an’ my rod, an reel.
An’ slip on my ole’ hip boots.
I know what's the matter,
here, °
To go out for the speckled beauts.
the time is
I get a tin can, an’ dig me some worms.
An’ hunt up the ole’ flybook.
An’ up to the attic, three steps at a time.
To get me a line, an’ a hook.
I'm goin’ a fishin’ I says to my wife,
Let the work, go, I don’t care a hoot,
She grinned, as she watched me tug, an’
pull,
I was tryin’ to get on the wrong boot.
So out to the trout stream, I hurry away.
My heart beatin’ high with hope,
Out fer’ the big one, that’s fooled me for
years,
I'll get him, fer’ I've got the right dope.
The first cast brings nothing’, the second
the same,
The third brought a mighty hard strike,
The way that boy fought, till I landed him
safe,
I never, in all my born days seen the like.
—By C. F. Rothenberger.
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—Colonel Jarvis J. Bain, United States
engineer, and party who are traveling on
Allegheny river in speed boats, arrived at
Warren and departed for Olean, N. Y.
—Charles Walker, an employee of the
Elk Fire Brick company at Renovo, suf-
fered injuries to his eyes and was burn-
{ed about the face, neck and chest in an
explosion of powder in the clay mines of
the company at Drurys Run. He was re-
moved to the Renovo hospital.
—The State Council of Education has
made a special appropriation of $18,000 to
Burnside borough, Clearfield county, to be
jo in constructing a new four-room
elementary school building. The struc-
ture will replace an old one now in use
which has been condemned as unfit.
—There will be no licensing of barbers
| in Pennsylvania during the next two years.
The senate committee on public health
| and sanitation Tuesday killed the bill of
| Speaker Hess requiring all barbers to take
out a State license. The bill, supported
by thé Pennsylvania Federation of Labor,
had passed the House of Representatives.
—J. C. “Speed” Brown, Antis township,
Blair county, constable who twice escaped
from officers who had arrested him, was
apprehended in Cumberland, Md., Tues-
day, and is being held for Blair county
officers. G. E. Fuoss, Bellwood justice
of the peace, who had committed Brown
to jail in default of $1,000 bail, last night
| certified the charges to the district at-
torney.
—Three persons were electrocuted in
the cellars of two houses in Biddle, West-
moreland county, last Thursday. Mrs.
Paulina Canella, 34, met death when the
globe of an electric light extension broke
and her husband, Angelo, 51, was killed
when he attempted to pick her up. Mrs.
Jeaconda Menegas, 51, was killed when
she touched a bare wire in her cellar two
blocks away half an hour later.
—The maximum penalty for illegal trout
fishing has been imposed upon Fred Jack-
|' son, George Jackson and H. E. McGoni-
: gal, all residents of Renovo, following
their arrest near Keating by game pro-
tector Arthur G. Logue. They were found
in possession of 180 brook trout, for which
they were assessed $10 each, plus a $25 fine
against each man for fishing without a
license. Their fines totalled $1,875 or $625
apiece plus the costs of prosecution.
—Joseph G. Swank, the 84-year-old Co-
| lumbia county farmer who was trapped
in a barbed wire fence last Saturday when
he fled before an advancing grass fire,
Attention, Messrs Fisher, Grundy and | died at the Berwick hospital. Swank, a
Mellon!
From the Harrisburg Patriot.
Gentlemen: You have assumed re-
sponsibility for the leadership ofthe
Republican party in Pennsylvania I |
shaping the legislative program of the
present session. In specific instances
you have demonstrated you have the
power to determine what legislation
shall and shall not pass. One of the
major issues, before the Legislature is
adequate election reform, which you,
Governor, have advocated in your in-
augural and other addresses.
The voting machine enabling bill,
which the voters of the State last No-
“vember by an overwhelming majority
ordered the Legislature to enact, has!
been weakened seriously. Further
emasculation threatens it. It is with-
in the power of you leaders not only
to restore this bill to its original
vigor but to have enacted the meas-
ures to eliminate the “chain ballot,” |
send ballot crooks to jail, impound !
surplus ballots, restrict assistance to
voters physically incapacitated and
other bills designed to safeguard the
voting booth.
You are asked to do in this case |
' only what you have demonstrated you
have been able to do in other cases. '
Postponement or compromise can be
interpreted only as yielding to the en-
emies of a clean ballot. '
Pure elections are fundamentally
essential to honest and efficient gov-
ernment. They constitute the key-
stone of the arch. If the keystone is
weakened, the arch falls.
Pennsylvania by its history of elec-
tion debauchery is pilloried before
the Nation. One of its Senators is
barred at the door of Congress on
that account. Your party and your
administration are honor bound to
complete the work begun last session
and authorized by the voters last No-
vember. The people expect you to al- |
ly yourselves on the side of civic de-
cency and against the vandals who
ravish the polling places of honest
citizens.
As leaders of the Republican party
and as citizens, the opportunity and
the responsibility are yours. - The
people have a right to expect per-
formance. They will not be satisfied
with apology or explanation if the |
session adjourns without providing |
adequate election reform.
rm A ——————
AN EDITOR'S LAMENT.
From the Pathfinder.
A Maine editor voices the following
dirge: “We have many subscribers
who have taken our paper for four
years and have paid us nothing. Do
such persons think we can live on
birchbark, like a Cossack’s horse, or
grow fat by inhaling the west wind?
Do they suppose the Female Charit-
able Society find us with clothes? Do
they suppose that paper, types, ink,
and many other costly and necessary
articles are sent to us by unknown
and invisible hands? Whatever Dr.
Faustus might have done, the black
art of modern printers has no such
magic in it. When hungry, we have
no time to fish and hunt, and it would
be impious to expect a sheet full of
good things to be miraculously let
down from the heavens by the four
corners, as in the case of Peter; and
as to being fed by ravens, it is more
likely that the ravens will feed scant-
ily upon us-—unless we get some mon-
ey shortly.
——————— fy ——————————
. Senator ' Capper, of Kansas,
magnifies the iniquities of New York
but is unable to see the greater ini-
quities of Philadelphia.
me—————p lp ——
— The House of Representatives,
on Monday evening, passed 'finally
the bill appropriating $345,000 to
Rockview penitentiary.
Civil war veteran who had participated 1
thirty-two battles, had returned to his
Mifflin township farm only a few days be-
fore he suffered the burns which caused
his death. He had started a grass fire to
clear a field in preparation for plowing
, but the wind shifted suddenly, sweeping
the fire toward him.
' _Taking her 10-year-old son, Donald
| Gates, to the Beaver Dam near Flinton,
| Cambria . county, on Sunday evening,
i Gussie Gates, 35, unmarried, shot and kill-
ed the child and then committed suicide.
| The double tragedy was discovered by the
| dead woman's brother when a search was
started after the two failed to return from
| church. The two bodies were lying partly
in the shallow water. In the woman's
right hand was a revolver. Both victims
, were shot through the head. Disappoint-
| ment in a love affair is blamed by rela-
tives.
i —After having been unconscious for 125
hours, Harvey Wessner, 46, of Mt. Carmel,
died in the State hospital at Ashland, on
Sunday, from a fractured skull. Early
Easter Monday morning Wessner and Les-
ter Lindenmuth, 40, also of Mt. Carmel,
were engaged in a form of William Tell
sport. Their hats represented the apple,
and a baseball bat the bow and arrow.
Lindenmuth missed his aim and struck
Wessner on the forehead, knocking him
down a flight of stairs and fracturing his
skull. Lindenmuth is held in the Sun-
bury jail and will be charged with mur-
der.
— Blair county authorities are investi-
gating an acident which cost the lives of
two young women and sent a third to the
hospital with severe injuries. Herbert C.
Linn, trolley motorman, was held in $5000
bail on an involuntary manslaughter
charge, following the deaths of Miss Syl-
via Lomnéth, 25, of Schuykill Haven, and
Miss Mary Kessler, 19, of Tyrone. Miss
Ruth Kessler, Tyrone, driver of the car,
is still in the hospital. The accident oc-
curred in front of the Methodist home,
in Tyrone, on Saturday, when a Tyrone
trolley car_struck the coupe occupied by
the three women.
—Warden Reits, of the Northumberland
county prison, on Sunday discovered that
prisoners have been enjoying smuggled
whisky by an ingenious method. Stand-
ing outside of the grating of the main
entrance to cell wings, visitors would pass
a soda water straw through the half-inch
steel mesh over the doors and Hold the
bottle’s mouth close to the mesh, the
.| prisoners either drinking the liquor or
siphoning it into their own bettles to be
used when needed. A sixteenth of inch
mesh wire screen has been placed over the
top of the present one and all visitors will
be searched in the future.
_E. BE. Kineman, of York, has been in
the poultry business there many years,
but not until last week did he ever pur-
chase almost a crate of stones, thinking
it was full of eggs. A dealer in Phila-
delphia in acknowledging receipt of a
consignment of eggs from the York dealer,
stated that in one shipment he found a
crate supposed to contain white eggs, but
instead of thirty dozens, nineteen dozens
of eggs had been replaced with stones.
Kineman bought the crate of eggs locally
and shipped it to Philadelphia. While
the top and side layers were made up of
eggs, the remainder were stones.
—Miss Ruth Sprankle, 48, of Punxsu-
tawney, died in the Punxsutawney hos-
pital last Friday from burns received
when her clothes caught fire in the loft of
a barn at her home. She went to the
loft that morning to get some bed springs.
The loft was dark and she lit a match just
as she felt a fainting spell coming on and
started out of the building. cae fell
three feet from the stairs, the match ig-
niting straw. When Eugene Geist found
her, her clothing was almost all burned
away.” Miss Sprankle, immediately after
the ‘acquittal of Mrs. Bertha Haffner for
the murder of State policeman Victor J:
Busch, about a month ago, stated she had
lied ‘on the witness stand and had under-
stood the dying words of the policeman
| to be, ‘She shot me.”