—The equinoctial storm was a lit-
tle belated, but it was mighty wel- |
«come since it brought such a copious
rain. 'soent
‘'—Somebody has said that a sun-
beam is something ‘that'll go
‘ ‘through pollution and come out un-
polluted. Would that all our sons|
could say that the sunbeam has noth-
ing on us.*- diy
—William Feather never said any-
thing truer in his life than when he
expressed this bit -of philosophy:
“The boy who does not lead a normal
life in youth usually takes his vices
at one gulp the moment he becomes
a free agent.” Mothers, if you are
making a Little Lord Fauntleroy of
your son or daughter your - apron
Strings are lashing you to the pillory
of many heartaches.
—According to the records of the
Danville State hospital the rate of
admissions for alcoholic disorders is
now seven times greater than it was
jn 1919-1920. With the asylums, jails
and penitentiaries bulging with vic-
tims of bad liquor we think our col-
leges ought to extend their extension
departments so that moonshiners can
‘talte a correspondenc course in how
to make better stuff. h
—We are not particularly interest-
ed in what Mr. Shearer might have
done by way of compromising us
while ‘at the Geneva conference. We
would be interested, however, in
learning whether any of the Sena-,
tors, who have him on the rack,
have a record for constructive en-
deavor and loyal citizenship that will
equal the one their spies have re-
ported him to possess.
—For goodness sake, if you love
us, give us a recipe for firing a
house heating plant so that it will
please everybody when it’s 50 degrees
in the morning and 70 degres at
noon. Ever since we discarded the
cherry old coal range inthe kitchen
there’s been trouble in the home. Gas
is wonderful, it is at the cook’s com-
mand when she comes down stairs in
the morning. There is no waiting
for it to “catch up,” but it hasn't
done what the good old coal range
did, work while we slept, and had
the chill taken off the bath room.
od, how we hate the smell of a new-
ly lighted oil stove, the hope of the
orudent wife who attempts to bridge
he gap between the mild weather
f summer and the crisp nights of
all. It takes more of an engineer
shar we are to keep a house hot
snough to get up in the morning and
:001 enough to stay in at midday with
\ furnace designed to keep it com-
ortable in zero weather. If you have
\ recipe for mot forgetting the fur-
ace or of keeping. it just right with.
ut using any coal please put us wise.
Shearer in His Own Defense.
In his testimony before the Sen-
ate committee, the other day,
William B. Shearer, practical lob-
byist and professional patriot, failed
'to present an imposing figure of
himself but he did somewhat punc-
ture the reputation for idealism
which Mr. Charles M. Schwab has
been building for some time. It will
be recalled that Mr. Schwab testified
before the same committee that as
soon as he learned that Shearer was
.on the payroll of the Bethlehem
| Steel company he ordered the revo-
cation of the contract. Shearer
testified that Schwab was “the real
inspiration behind the lobbying and
propagation at Geneva,” and that a
threat that Secretary Kellogg would
prosecute a suit for $15,000,000
against the Bethlehem corporation
unless Shearer was discharged, was
the actual reason for cancelling the
contract. - : : didn +
By his own evidence William B.
Vare Probe on a New Lead.
Senator Norris seems to have di-
Mr. rected his probe as .to the source
of Vare’s slush fund into a promis-
ing direction. He has already dis-
covered at least one contributor of
the phantom variety and is likely to
uncover others. There is a deep-
seated suspicion that a considerable
part of the fund credited to business
men of Philadelphia was in fact
contributed by Mr. Vare himself.
There is an equally wide-spread be-
lief that much of the $50,000 - listed
in the name of Sheriff Cunningham
was drawn from bootleggers and
other protected operatives in * the
criminal life of Philadelphia. The
purpose of Senator Norris’ undertak-
ing is to develop the facts in the
matter. 8
With this object in view he first
procured a list: of the contributors
as filed and sworn to by Thomas F.
Watson, Sr., treasurer of the Vare
campaign committee, in the office
Shearer stands condemned as a of the Secretary of the Common-
conscienceless adventurer preying wealth, at Harrisburg. To each of
upon public credulity in whatever those credited with large subscrip-
direction and by any methods that
promised liberal recompense. His
principal capital is what Samuel
Johnson defined as “the last refuge
of a scoundrel.” The first question
put to him by the chairman of the
committee was “what is your name?
and his reply was “William Baldwin
Shearer, American, Christian, Na-
tionalist and Protestant.” After the
chairman had promptly ordered
that “all except the name” be
stricken out, the witness added that
he had letters from almost every
patriotic society in America which
reflects no credit on the patriotic
societies of America and seems to
have been of little advantage to
Shearer. But that is of little impor-
tance to the question at issue.
~The simple facts are that William
Shearer, an adventurer of doubtful
character, was employed by three
shipbuilding corporations to attend
the Geneva conference sitting for
the purpose of devising means to
decrease or procure a parity in the
naval equipment of the United
States and Great Britain. That he
performed the work for which he
« was liberally . _that he inade
A a ar mitt Na Merally, Dai, jhat i of
ear the radio from the living room
xuding its program. Reception is
ine and both ears are cocked so that
oncentration on the work at hand is
ot without its difficulties. We are
isening, while writing, to a soprano
rom somewhere singing “After the
tall.” It might not mean much to
ou, but it does to us, for in the
ummer of 1893 we had a minstrel
how out on the road and Hard Har-
is, our present Mayor, was the en-
semble tenor. If Hard can't throw
ff that awful cough he has and has
> march up to greet St. Peter we
rant to place something in his hand
iat might prove an open sesame to
1e pearly gates. Hard was the first
1an, east of Omaha, to sing “After
1e Ball’ from a stage. Notwithstand.
ig what Mr. Chas. K. Harris, the
uthor of the song, might have said,
\ his reminiscences published in the
aturday Evening Post some time
70, about the song that really made
im famous, we had a copy of the
viginal of his manusceript. from a
incinnati music publishing house be-
re it was in print and the echo of
ie applause Hard got when he sang
in Tyrone and Clearfield, specially,
music far sweeter to our ears than
iy we are now hearing from the
.dio—possibly that is because Amos
id Andy have just come on.
—The rather striking bit of verse,
¢ published several weeks ago,
Jawn and Dusk” the authorship of
hich we ascribed to someone in
afton, Pennsylvania, because it
re the post-mark of that city,
ems to have had even more merit
an: we ascribed to it at the time of
tblication. It has been published in
any of our exchanges and credited
the Watchman, ‘an honor to which
» are not entitled. We have been
rprised and elated, however, with
e discovery that the author is none
her than our nephew, Thomas King
srris;Jr., whose modesty prompted
n to resort to the subterfuge of
onymity to get his fine thoughts
0 print. The youth of the land is
leed a mystery. Looking down at
from the pedestal to which exper-
\ce raises those of mellowing years
are too prone to think it hopeless. |
» know nothing of what they are
in their devil-may-care way.
might be because we know least
)$¢" whom we love best that the
t person in the world whom we
uld have thought to be the author
“Dawn and Dusk” is the one who
lly wrote
} Whistler's notes, the Bird's sweet
song,
» rising sun and Faith, how long
1 these withstand the age old test
life? Not long I fear unless—
me—there comes at close of day
. peaceful hour when creatures pray.
I's Aronise for the day is Dawn;
wake and live, the I are drawn,
sunset rests my weary soul
then I've won through to my goal;
now I know I like by far
dusk that brings the evening star.
his operations to his employers and
that if he had not brought suit for
money which he claimed was due
him the world would never have
known the affair. Clearly the pres-
ent purpose is to make Shearer the
goat, and the chances are it will
succeed, But the corporations which
employed a super patriot to serve a
treasonable purpose ought not to
escape blame entirely. Besides, the
practice is a policy of the party.
Hoover Wants Great Power.
President Hoover is somewhat in-
consistent in his communication to
the Senate urging the adoption of
the flexible provision of the pending
tariff bill. At the outset he declared
that “he will not at any time discuss
specific rates as he regards that as
an interference with Congress.” It
certainly would be usurpation of the
prerogatives of Congress which un-
der the constitution has, alone, the
power of legislation and fixing tariff
rates is essentially legislation. But
he covets the power of fixing the
rates of tariff taxation through the
medium of the flexible provision, now
in force under the Fordney-McCum-
ber act and he asks to have it con-
tinued under the pending bill, not-
withstanding. tin
The flexible provision of the exsist.
ing tariff law creates a Commission
to investigate complaints against
rates. Originally it was to be com-
posed of economic experts and non-
partisan. But it was to be appoint-
ed by the President and under prec-
edents established by President
Coolidge it may be “packed” in the
interest of high protectionists. As
a matter of fact whenever any mem-
ber of the Commission revealed an in-
_clination to favor a decrease in rates
i he was induced to resign so that his
place could be filled by a man in
favor of increases. In that way
every change in tariff rates made by
Presidential proclamation was to a
higher level. Patronage was freely
used in promoting such results.
The value of a flexible provision in
{the tariff law to an aspiring Presi-
dent may easily be imagined. The
, danger of such legislation can hardly
jue measured. It conveys to the Presi-
dent power to enrich or impoverish
‘any man orgroup engaged in manu.
factures or commerce. In a cam-
paign for re-election the President
might easily, by the employment of
this extraordinary power, conscript
the wealth of the country into his
service and make his tenture of office
perpetual.
ter has not been influenced by these
considerations to urge that this pow-
er be bestowed upon him. But the
fact is that the danger is not only
present but imminent and public safe.
i
: ty requires it's removal.
Possibly President Hoov-:
tions he has written a letter asking
how much he gave and whether in
cash or check. In cases where
checks were used he asks the name
of the bank upon which it was
drawn. The Senator states that one
of the alleged contributors has posi-
tively declared he made no contri.
bution and it is intimated that oth-
ers have followed his example. Of
course some of them will refuse or
neglect to reply but that policy will
expose them to suspicion.
It has already been proved . that
Vare himself contributed more than
he ought to secure his election. He
acknowledges personal contributions
amounting to upward of $71,000
whidh is more than the salary for the
full term and asit costs a good deal
to maintain the dignity of a Senator
in Washington he must have expected
to find some source of revenue other
than the legal compensation. But it
will not be so easy to find out where
the Cunningham contribution came
from. Mr. Cunningham may be sent
to jail, as Sinclair was, and that
would shut off every source of in-
formation. But on the other hand
conclude that
"it would be wise to tell the truth.
——A new religion has been start-
ed the purpose of which is to teach
| “How to Get Along with Each Oth-
er.” That is certainly a laudable
purpose and the first feature of the
creed ought to be “behave.”
Mystery of Lobby Operations
Mr. William B. Shearer must have
had other sources of revenue during
the period he was employed by three
ship building corporations as lobby-
st. The officials of those corpora-
| tions acknowledge that they paid him
i $7,500.00 for lobbying in Washington
' during the Sixty-ninth Congress and
. $25,000.00 for “observing and report-
ing” at Geneva during the conference
! for reducing naval forces. In a let-
ship building corporations upon his
return from Geneva he said his ex-
penses “over the period of time 1
have devoted to this fight are well
in six figures.” It might be worth
while to find out where the rest of
themoney came from.
There is some distance between
$32,500 and $100,000 which is the
lowest total that can be expressed in
six figures and the difference must
‘have come from some source other
than Sunday school collections. Go-
ing into details. Mr. Shearer stated
the “other than my expenses of nec-
essary entertaining both here andin
Europe, there has been considerable
expense for stenographers, stationery,
stamps, multigraphing, printing, au-
tomobile, train and steamship travel.
My mailing list runs from 1200 to
4000.” Such luxuries and necessaries
do run unto money and it may well
be believed that he was anxious to
get an understanding “as to the stat-
us of my just claim based on our un-
derstanding.” x
The books of the ship building cor-
porations fail to show any payments
on account of these lobby activities
but as the fiscal officers of them ac-
knowledge, under oath, payments of
$7,500 and $25,000, it may be assumed
that much was paid. But stenogra-
phers stationery, stamps, multigraph-
ing, automobile, train and steam-
ship service are cash commodities
and as Shearer is not a wealthy
man where did the six figure differ-
ence come from? Of course the
steamship corporation officials may
have overlooked or forgot about
some contributions or Mr.
might have persuaded patriotic or-
ganizations or religious societies to
chip in. Anyway it is an interest~
ing and mysterious problem.
——The courts of this State are
gradually raising the penalty for
IGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
isp i
PA.
“Gown abd out he may
ter addressed to the officials of the
Shearer :
OC
| Law Enforcement in Washington.
. The question of prohibition. en-
forcement in Washington is increas-
ing both in interest and importance.
Senator Howell's statemeat that the
President is to blame for the mois-
ture has encouraged others to speak
out. Senator Blease told of narcotic
joints within the shadow of the capi-
tol and Senator Brookhart followed
with a startling story of a Senator-
ial dinner at which the souveaivs
‘were silver flasks filled with whis-
‘key. This function, under the ‘anus-
pices of a Wall Street broker, was
for the purpose of introducing newly
‘elected Senators into the ways and
methods of legislation as practiced
in Washington under a Republican
administration. It was known as
the “Wall Street Dinner.”
. Of course there were some Sena-
tors at the feast who were already
familiar with the processes. There
were Charlie Curtis, now Vice Presi-
dent; Reed Smoot, now Chairman of
the Committee on Finance; George
H. Moses, now President Pro Tem. of
the Senate; Wesley L. Jones, author
of the famous ‘five-and-ten” prohibi-
tion law; James W. Watson, now Re-
publican floor leader in the Senate
and other veterans as well as ex-
perts in partisan legislation. Their
part of the programme was to intro-
Suse the “greenhorns’ to their Wall
street hosts and recommend them
as worthy “guides, philosophers and
friends,” who knew exactly what
legislation was needed and precisely
how it might be obtained.
The banquet was held at Willard’s
and was the recherche event of the
session of 1926. Senator Brookhart'’s
present purpose is to have the pro-
prietor or manager of the hotel
brought into court to answer for the
flagrant violation of the Volstead law.
That is a laudable purpose and clear-
ly essential to the promise of making
“Washington a model city.” But it
isn’t the solution = of the problem
which confronts the authorities of t
Washington and the administration
of President Hoover. A searching
inquiry into the purpose of a dinner to
Senators in
a sinister aspect
explanation.
Fe
ny
; t. It De
| that needs
1
|
—A relatively unimportant elec-
tion in the State is approaching.
That is, there are only two State of-
fices to be filled and few county offices
of importance figure in the contest.
t
|
; along non-partisan lines. Nothwith-
standing this phase of the campaign
word comes out of Harrisburg that
a “shakedown” of from one to three
per cent. of the salaries of all State
chine politics. That's how enough
voters are hired to go to the polls in
an “off” year and elect to office the
little cogs in the machine’s wheels
while the good people stay at home.
—Bellefonte can kiss hope of a
new public building good-bye for at
least ten years. We fear the Hon.
Mitch. Chase hasn't been nearly as
much interested in Bellefonte as he
will be when he comes up for elec-
tion again,
——— i ———————
——Maybe Senator Brookhart is a
trifle off in form in exposing the sil-
ver flask episode of the Wall street
dinner to Senators but it is one case
in which the purpose justifies the
breach.
|
pp ————
i ——The State Highway’s oiling
schedule for the week ending Octo-
| ber 10th includes two stretches of
road in Centre county, from Hublers-
burg to Howard and Madisonburg to
Nittany.
——— A eng
——=Senator Norris is trying to
find out who contributed to the Vare
slush fund in 1926 and may incident-
ally start a procession toward Cherry
Hill. :
epee gp————— fp ————
——Mr. Vare has resumed leader-
i ship of the Republican machine in
Philadelphia but he is making little
progress toward a seat in the Sen-
Hate. uous
——Senator Couzens may be plan-
ning a final blow to Secretary Mel-
lon in his movement to probe the re-
cent power mergers.
——President Hoover's week-end
parties may develop into an institu-
tion unless the Sabbatarians enter a
. protest in time.
——Senator Copeland of New York
ought to have come home sooner or
secured a “pair” before he left for
Europe.
——What the city of Easton really
drunken driving to a level that “fits
the crime.”
needs is a hospital for the treatment
of moral maladies.
TOBER 4. 1929.
SUMMER IS SLEEPING
When the mist and fog and late
sun
All get together to tell us quit
‘Gay Summer is passing, t’will
again.”
Oh, isn’t it nice when the Fall days come,
Summer
e plain
We
greens,
We Thase a few flies and close all the
For cool days are coming bringing Winter
once more.
The noise and harsh dins of the stree
don’t exist,
out by the mist
And you ‘“‘putter about,” in the quiet in
side,
For Winter is comin d as—
ate : g and Christm
i easy to speed the long Summer
And Jrelcome the Fall, with its blanket of
y
For we know u
| _ ‘and chill ra
again.
1
i
i September, 1929
They Lifted Canal Boats Over the
| Mountains.
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Mountains near
of the old Portage Railroad,
since abandoned.
er, is especially
i link in the system of “public works’
connecting these cities in 1829, which
represented one of the greatest en-
gineering achievements up to that
time.
ern doctrine and practice.
|
the term “main line,” referrin
Pennsylvania Railroad's
: route
from this enterprise.
As the first link in these “public
Congress, new or old, by works,” the State built a railroad
Wall Street manipulators of finance from this city to Columbia. Thence
ngers and freight were convey-
to Hollidays-
| burg. From that point the Portage
i Railroad climbed over the mountains
to Johnstown, whence a second canal
‘ed in boats on a can
, completed the route to Pittsburgh.
Se
i
|
i
one time
over the Portage.
transportation,
"as a perilous adventure.
Historians have
taining
!
|
phia. But
State.
years.
line of public wor
stone State.
their canal boats on wheels and tri
tops of the Allegheny Mountains.
For Speed and Accuracy.
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
ing - machines,
fraud - naturally has been
of fundamental importance.
by the voting machines.
“honest errors” have been discovered.
returns. !
boards had committed no frauds, the
were the numerous instances, as us-
ual, of boards in large districts hav-
ing to lose a night's sleep, with the
tabulation holding them from the
close of the polls until late the next
1
be Winter
take down the awnings and pack
away screens,
and out from the gardens we ‘‘catch up”
he nerve racking sounds are closed
der Winter's deep snow
Summer is sleeping, but will come back
WINIFRED B. MEEK-MORRIS
The unveiling next Tuesday of a
monument high up in the Allegheny
Cresson will com-
memorate the hundredth anniversary
long
This memorial,
erected with State funds by a com-
mission appointed by Governor Fish.
interesting to the
people of Philadelphia and Pitts-
burgh, for the Portage road was the
It is customary to regard “public
ownership” as a comparatively mod-
But a
century ago the State of Pennsyl-
vania owned :and operated this “main
line of public works,” as it was call-,
ed, comprising two lines of railway
and two canals. And, by the way,
to
direct
west from Philadelphia, dates
The Portage Railroad included a
ries of inclined planes up which
canal boats were dragged in sections.
| A special Segsigy permitted te Hvis
! sion of a boat so that its parts
For the most part the campaign’ could be mounted on huge trucks
, will be for townsaip, town and city ' drawn by hempen cables, the power
offices in which the inclination has , being furnished by a sationary .en-
been steadily developing to vote gine at the top of each plane. At
thirty-three changes of
power were needed to move a boat
Charles Dickens
was among the distinguished passen-
gers who marveled St me Wontes of
2 an e has left a
employees is to be levied. That's ma- vivid account of what he regarded
shown the part
played by the old : Portage in main-
"the early importance of
Pittsburgh as the gateway to the
West. Without this system of trans-
| portation, its prosperity might have
been affected by the popularity of
rival routes of trade. To a somewhat
less degree, the old Portage had its
on the welfare of Philadel-
it was a factor in the
commercial progress of the entire
Due credit should be paid to
the wise foresight of the Common-
wealth’s officials at that time in pro-
moting this great enterprise. The
Erie Canal across New York State
had then been ' in operation four
Its adverse effect on Phila-
delphia and Pennsylvania through its
diversion of trade would have been
far more marked without the “main
” across the Key-
Express trains now traverse this
route daily in nine hours and less.
But the initial conquest was achiev-
ed by those courageous engineers of
a century ago when they mounted
umphantly trundled them over the
In arguments for the use of vot-
the prevention of
stressed
chiefly. It is difficult to imagine a
worse crime against popular govern-
ment than the corruption of an elec-
tion. ‘Any device that gives an add-
ed safeguard against it is obviously
But the news from the official
count of the vote in the recent pri-
maries contains some reminders of
other great needs that will be met
In a num-
ber of instances throughout the State
In Chester county five ballot boxes
had to be opened to straighten out
It was found that the
discrepancies being accepted as of a
nature purely accidental. Then there
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONR.
—Dr. J. Bruce McCreary, deputy sec-
retary of health, has announced that
850,000 copies of the Pennsylvania baby
book are now ready for distribution.
They will be distributed by the bureau
of vital statistics on certificate from the
attending doctor or may be obtained by
‘writing to the pre-school section of the
State Health Department.
—Alfred G. Shissler, 50, chief burgess,
of Shamokin, had his pocket picked of
a wallet containing $200 while in Sunbury,
‘on Monday, by two youths, who had en-
gaged him in conversation. Shissler told
police he was on his way to a hotel when
the youths stopped him to ask questions.
He didn’t discover his loss until the
thieves were out of sight. . :
—George A. Stuart, director of the bu-
reau of markets, State Department of
Agriculture, is authority for the state-
ment that the garlic moth is reducing the
value of wheat grown in the State thou-
sands of dollars annually. He urged
farmers to give close attention to the
kind of seed sown, fumigation of bins and
cleaning up all wheat about storage places
before next spring.
—Suit for $75,000 damages was filed at
Ebensburg, last Friday, by Michael Sak-
mar and Savanna Sakmar, his mother,
against the Johnstown Traction company,
Johnstown, for injuries they alleged Sak-
mar suffered when a street car collided
with another car in Johnstown August
22. Sakmar was a passanger on one of
the trolleys. The mother asks $25,000
damages and the son seeks $50,000.
..—Mrs. Frances Latchaw, 20, wife of
Theodore Latchaw, of York, was placed
in the York county jail after a fight at
the supper table, during which she is al-
leged to have stabbed Ler husband in the
back with a butcher knife and burned bis
neck with a hot pancake turner. She was
committed to jail by Alderman Jacob
Stager in default of bond in the sum of
$500 on charges of aggravated assault and
battery and threatening to kill her hus-
band.
—John F. Dietrich, 53 years old, one of
the ‘‘vanishing race” artisans of the days
when carriages were made by hand and
later in small factories, is dead at his
home in Reading. Deitrich’s body was
found on the banks of the Perkiomen
creek, near Collegeville, where he had
gone fishing, by another angler. Heart
disease is believed to have caused his -
death. He was a blacksmith, learning the
craft in boyhood, and at one time had a
factory of his own in Tamaqua.
—The Rev. Charles Donnelly, evangel-
ist, of Pittsburgh, who claimed his ton-
sils and throat were injured go that he
was totally disabled for three raonths af-
ter conducting a revival campaign at the.
Burnside church near Mahaffey, Pa., has
been denied compensation bv the State
workmen’s compensation board because
the claim was not filed for more than a
year after the occurrence. The minister
asked that the Pittsburgh conference of
the Methodist Episcopal church compen-
sate him. 3
_—Seventy per cent. of all cattle in
Pennsylvania are now tested for tuber-
culosis, the State Department of Agricul-
ture has announced. With bovine tuber-
culosis eradication work on an area basis
under way at the present in 976 townships
in fifty-eight counties, the department es-
timated that all herds in at least forty
of ‘the State's sixty-seven counties will
have received the test by January 1. The
area work is now being conducted Mn
Clinton, Bedford, Centre, Juniata, Schuyl-
kill and Wayne counties.
—When a quantity of dynamite explod-
ed on the back porch of his home, John
Kvasknick, aged 27, of Hudson, Luzerne
county, was blown to pieces, and his wife
was critically injured. She was taken to
a hospital, where it is: believed that she
will lose one arm. Neighbors stated that
Kvasknick was experimenting with sev-
eral dry cell batteries which he expected
to use to set off blasts in the mines where
he was employed. Mrs. Kvasknick was
watching her husband from the kitchen
door when the explosion occurred.
—There have been bridal showers, rice
showers, flower showers and rein showers
in Reading, but the most exciting shoew-
er of all took place when a bag contain-
ing 10,000 pennies was dropped while be-
ing taken to a bank. Police formed a
cordon around the pile of pennies after
scores of pedestrians had scuffled through
it, and after a lot of small newsheys had
taken advantage of the situation. After
all the coins in sight had been scraped up
and bazged ,it was officially announced
that every cent had been recovered.
—Burgess A. G. Shissler of Shamokin,
has announced that he will ask council at
a meeting in the near future to draft an
ordinance to prohibit the use of any soft
coal in that borough. The burgess ex-
pressed himself forcibly on the subject.
Within the past several months, he de-
clared, he has had scores of complaints
from residents who protest the use of soft
coal—in machinery of construction and by
paving companies. Most of the complaints
are to the effect that dust from the fuel
damages the appearance of homes, settles
on paint and discolors surfaces.
—District Attorney Samuel H, Gardner,
of Pittsburgh, asserts that the three coal
and iron policemen acquitted Saturday of
the murder of John Borkowski, miner,
will be brought to trial some time in Oc-
tober on charges of involuntary man-
| slaughter. The three, W. J. Lyster, Har-
old P. Watts and Frank Slapikas were in
the Allegheny county jail early in the
week in default of $5,000 bail each, but
expected to secure their release. The po-
licemen, formerly employed by the Pitts-
burgh Coal company, were charged with
beating Borkowski to death last Febru-
ary. The defense contended he was in-
jured in a scuffle after he had stabbed
Watts following an argument.
t
—Becoming suddenly deranged, Edna
Langraf, 22 years old, of Allentown, ser-
iously injured her mother, and attacked
a policeman with a hatpin, before she was
subdued and placed under observation in
police headquarters on Sunday. The
woman was found a year ago in an un-
conscious condition on a Bethlehem street.
A milkman picked her up, and she told a
variety of stories as to how she came to
be there. The girl’s peculiar actions as
she left home on Sunday attracted the at-
tention of neighbors who were about to
notify police when her mother appeared.
She tried to persuade the girl to return
home, but was attacked and thrown to
the ground. Her leg was broken. Police
were then summoned, but the girl was
not to be found. She suddenly appeared
from around a porch, and lunged vicious-
ly with the hatpin at Motorcycle Officer
Beisel, inflicting a painful wound in his
right Teg. ey :