Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK. S. C.. THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1938 M en of the ounted by Captain G. Elliott - Nightingale ' Copyright, WNU A VERY DEUCATE SITUATION The Northern Lights have seen queer sights And a queer one they sure did see When one fine night—two men—not so bright Swiped two tons of coal, from MacPhee. IN SPITE of the fact that there * were outcroppings of coal here and there, and that settlers could cart the not-so-bituminous stuff away for two dollars a ton, some one went to the trouble to steal two tons of the wretched stuff from a settler's back yard one night, and the incident gave rise to some un usually delicate situations. The los er, a hard-working and worthy na tive Canadian, kept the news of his loss to himself for several days, meanwhile trying to do a bit of am ateur detective work on his own. Ten days passed, without results, so one morning he saddled up and vis ited the nearest post of the Royal Mounted. Both the Mounted and the settler realized, of course, that the amount involved was rather small. Never theless, the laws concerning prop erty rights must be upheld, and an experienced member of the Royal Mounted was assigned to look into the matter. Starting in on a “cold trail” has many disadvantages, and the Mounted failed to turn up the slightest clue, for it is impossible to identity stolen coal when all the coal in the district came from the same vein. Furthermore, cold weather had set in and, somewhere- that coal was being burned. At any rate, it began to appear that the case of the stolen coal was to join the rather small index of unsolved cases. It was not forgotten, though, by the three men of the Royal Mounted stationed in that district. They stored the details away in the index of their minds confident that some day, somewhere, the first clue would come to light. Nor was their confidence misplaced. Then one morning a chap known as the “Smiling Constable” was trot ting his horse along the patrol when he observed a settler, away over to his right, waving and beckoning him to come over. In a few min utes the settler and the “Smiling Constable” were deep in whispered conversation behind the small sta ble. “My daughters know the whole story about who stole the coal from MacPhee’s place,” said the settler, “but unless you promise to protect their modesty and woman hood, we refuse to help you.” “Protect them!” exclaimed the Man of the Mounted, “Why ... of course I will. Witnesses, eh? That’s fine. Now, just where were they when they saw the robbery?” “That’s just the point. To shout that information in an open court room would be extremely em barrassing to them. One’s fourteen, the other’s sixteen . . . and to go into details would ...” “Why ‘extremely embarrassing* . . . was it so awful . . .?” “No, perfectly natural. Fact is they were taking care of a little matter that isn’t mentioned in po lite society.” And so it developed that unseen, yet seeing, these two young ladies had watched two men, whom they knew to be newcomers in the district, very carefully bag ging and sacking the coal and plac ing the lumpy bags in a grain-box wagon. The girls not only identi fied the robbers, but also described the grain bags, the horses, the har ness, the grain-box, and so on, and they clinched theit story by assert ing that they saw everything quite plainly because at the time the northern lights had broken out bril liant and strong and there were moments when they could, they de clared, have read a newspaper quite comfortably at two o’clock that morning. Within 24 hours the cul prits were arrested and two days later the case came up for trial. Meanwhile the prisoners had hired a lawyer who had for some time been under observation by the Mounted because of his sharp and unethical practices. The Royal Mounted established their charges. The shyster then started shouting for witnesses, but the Royal Mounted objected. The judge demanded explanations. The Man of the Mounted prosecuting the case asked the judge to step down from the bench for a moment. His honor complied, and the mounted policeman was soon whispering closely into the judge’s ear. The judge resumed his seat, at which the shyster began a display of tan trums. Finally, the lawyer ran out of breath and words, and the judge asked if he were finished. “Yes ... I am . . . but what does your so-called British law amount to when witnesses are for bidden to take the Stand?” he shout ed. “Why, my dear sir,” smiled his honor, “it amounts to 18 months for your clients, imprisonment at hard labor, and if you don’t behave yourself, you’ll do part of it with them. Next case.” Later the shy ster learned why the girls had been kept off the stand, and he threat ened to reopen the case. The Mounted promised to run him out of the country if he ever tried to re open that particular case. ADVENTURERS’ CLUB . HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! “Ice Age in the Bronx” By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter H ello everybody: For a long time I’ve been telling the cockeyed world that you don’t have to go places to find adventure. I remember once saying that you could get more thrills just by sticking around your own home town than you could by signing up with Admiral Byrd for one of his exploring trips to the South pole. And now, here comes John Standmann of the Bronx to tell me I was right about that South pole business. Admiral Byrd went down into the Antarctic to study the ice age, but Jack Standmann stayed home and studied another ice age—in the Bronx. The Admiral loaded up a boat, signed on a crew, and sailed away toward the South pole, but Jack just put on his coat and a pair of gloves and, in ten minutes, found a spot that was jpst as cold as anything the Byrd expedition was able to dig up in a year’s stay way down there at the bottom of the world. It was in June, 1932, which is a doggone strange time for a man to go Arctic adventuring in the Bronx. Jack was working in an ice-cream factory and that more or less explains everything. The plant was a new one, and a lot of new-fangled machinery had been installed in it. One of the machines was the big steel conveyor that carried packaged ice-cream into the freezing chamber. That machine was the special bane of Jack’s existence. The freezing chamber was a long tunnel where the temperature ran around forty below zero. Moisture used to gather in there and turn into ice. During a week’s time, enough of it used to collect so that there was danger of it stopping the machinery. Then, Jack found himself facing a job he didn’t like very well. Working in Forty Below Zero. The job was to crawl inside the freezing tunnel and hack and chip out all the ice. It was a chore that took every bit of two hours, but it had to be done a little at a time, for no man could stand that 40 below zero temperature for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. It couldn’t be done Jack Was Pulled Out of the Freezing Tunnel. while the plant was operating. It had to be done after closing time. The result was that Jack had to work overtime, and most of the evening at it. On this particular day, the plant had been working overtime itself. The minute the machinery stopped running Jack put on a lot of heavy clothes, slipped his hands into a pair of thick warm gloves, and crawled about 30 feet along the belt conveyor into that freezing tunnel. He worked as fast a» he could, but he had been in there only about a quarter of an hour when his clothes were frozen so stiff that he could hardly move about and his gloves were so hard and brittle he could scarcely use his hands, He had just about decided to crawl back and thaw out when suddenly he heard the door of the tunnel open, saw the lights go out, and then heard the door slam shut again. Locked in the Tunnel to Die. It was cold enough in that tunnel, but Jack suddenly went colder. He knew all too well the meaning of that slamming door. The light switch was just inside it. The watchman, not realizing that anybody was in there, had turned out the lights and locked the tunnel door. Even with the door open, Jack couldn’t have groped his way out of the tunnel along the perplexing maze of conveyor belts. He had been abandoned in that freezing hole—to die. Jack started to yell—he yelled until he was hoarse. But it was like yelling in a vacuum. The walls of the tunnel were insulated and sound proof. He began to crawl along the tunnel, his clothes freezing to the steel at every foot of the way. His gloves were as stiff as boards. The cold was penetrating to the very marrow of his bones. Pretty soon he would begin to get sleepy—and then— Nearly Crazed With Horror. It wasn’t a pleasant subject, but Jack couldn’t help thinking about it. Would they find him dead in the morning? Another idea struck him —a gristly, ghastly thought. When morning came, they would start the conveyor, and his stiff, dead body would be ground to pieces by the cogs of the great steel belt. Out of that machine, built to deliver the fixings for parties and the makings for kids’ ice-cream cones, would come a sicken ing mass of frozen and lacerated flesh—flesh that had once been Jack Standmann. A prey to thoughts like that. Jack almost went crazy. “It’s hard to explain the honor of freezing to death in a pitch-dark tunnel,” he says. “In my frenzy I imagined I had been in there for hours. I knew I’d be as stiff as my own gloves long before morn ing. But suddenly it occurred to me that I might try knocking on the wall.” Jack didn’t have much hope that that would work. The walls were too thick. But at one point—a place where a cold storage compartment adjoined the tunnel, the wall was not insulated at all. And at that point he started hammering with all his strength. Would anyone go into that compartment? Would anyone hear his frantic signal? Jack pounded for a long time. His body and face were numb, and his flailing arms were the only parts of him that had any feeling left in them, when suddenly, the lights went on. Someone yelled to him, and Jack doesn’t remember whether he answered or not. But presently he felt himself being lifted out of the tunnel and carried out into the warm June air. Well sir, if anybody in the Byrd expedition had any adventure as thrilling or as nearly fatal as that, I haven’t heard of it. Copyright.—WNU Service. Porcupine’s Quills The porcupine’s quill equipment is indeed the secret of its survival. It has no speed, no keenness of eye sight or smell, no cunning, but it does have between 20,000 and 40,- 000 daggers, each more poisonous than the sting of a wasp. The point of each quill is polished and very keen. Then come the barbs, over a thousand of them, which begin to stick out when they enter warm flesh, like the barbs on a fish hook. New Labels on 014 Statues “In some remote regions,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown, “our ancestors made statues to heroes look all pretty much alike, so that when a new set of heroes came into fashion they could simply apply new labels and so save much ex pense.” Founded Albuquerque, N. M. Albuquerque, N. M., was founded in 1706 by Francisco Cuervo de Valdez, temporary governor of New Spain. South American Tongue Twisters The following are pronunciations of some South American names: Asuncion (Ah-soon-se-own), Bahia (Baa-ee-yah), Barranquilla (Bare- ran-keel-ya), Buenos Aires (Bwa- knows-eye-race), Cartagena (Car- tay-hay-na), Iguazu Falls (Ee-qua- soo), Iquitos (Ee-key-toes), Llama (Yah-mah), Llao-Llao (Yow-yow), Magalanoes (Mah-gal-yea-nayes), Rio de Janeiro (Ree-oh day zhah- nay-row), Toquilla (Tow-kell-ya). Coyotes Good Mousers According to naturalists of the na tional park service, the coyote is a better mouser than the cat. His keen sense of hearing and sight, quickness of movement and ability to blend with the background of grass and shrubs makes him an excellent hunter of these rodents. London’s Old Globe Theater London’s Globe theater, where many of Shakespeare’s first plays were produced, seated 1,200 per sons. -THE BOOK SHELF ‘Living Death? In Prison Cell Told hy Byron By ELIZABETH C. JAMES ORD BYRON’S “The Prisoner of Chillon” is a story of dungeons and chains, of cruelty and death. Beside Lake Leman in Switzerland stands a castle that once saw the imprisonment and death of the last members of a noble family. The dungeon of this castle was so deep that the water of the lake seeped through the walls and formed little pools on the prison floor. Sunlight never came into the dark prison, there was only one window and that was high and small. Through it came light during a short part of the day, but the sun shine never came through, and the dis torted light gave a wan and ghostly ap pearance to the in terior of the deep dungeon. . Into this prison were placed three brothers. They were the last members alive of their honor able family. There had been seven in the beginning, but the father had been burned at the stake, two brothers had died on the field of battle apd their moth er had died of a broken heart. Placed so that they could not see each other, each man was chained to a rock pillar. Now the three of them languished in their chains which were so fastened that their bodies were soon indelibly scarred. One Brother Dies. After a time the voice of the sec ond brother, the active, out-of-door one, grew more and more despond ent; he spoke more softly and less often. Then he did not speak at all. When the keeper came to bring their water and prison food, he found this brother dead. The two remaining brothers, the oldest and the youngest sons of the family, talkdd with each other of the battles and the insurrection that had brought them to this prison. But one day the youngest of the family did not answer to his broth- Elizabeth James LORD BYRON A PLAYBOY Two handicaps attended George Gordon, Lord Byron: his family environment and his own vanity. Gordon grew np without train ing, for his mother, being desert ed by her willful husband, the rowdy Captain Byron, declined into melancholia so overwhelm ing that at times her mind seemed doomed. The parents left the boy to grow up alone. Byron's natural pride was en hanced by his unexpected inheri tance of the estate and title, for which there had been two heirs ahead of him. His attractiveness combined with his lack of princi ple kept him in mix-ups with women all his life. His marriage to a lovely wom an of England went happily for only a short time. Soon after their daughter was born, Lady Byron left her husband, never to return. to him. She steadfastly refused to give any reason for this, but London soon heard of his behavior in a scandal. He was ostracized, and fled to Italy. Until the end of his life, Byron lived on the continent. er’s voice. There was only quiet ness in the dungeon, broken by the hysterical cries of the eldest son shrieking to his brother to stay with him. But he had died. Terror, Then Calm. For a time he was stunned with grief; he lost track of time or place. He was not conscious of anything except vague oblivions. Then grad ually his senses returned to remind him that he was alone in the prison cell. When the keepers came and found that he had burst his chains they did not consider that it was worthwhile to chain him fast again, so they left him free to walk about the dungeon. Then he wanted to see the world again, and he made steps up the side of the uneven rock wall until he could clutch the ledge of the window and pull himself up to look out through the little opening. Across the waters of Lake Leman and opposite the castle, he saw in the distance an island, green and bright in the summer sun. Freedom Meaningless. Then one day he was set free. Someone came to the castle and made negotiations. After a time a keeper opened the heavy barred door and told him that he could now go free. The prisoner stood alone on the shore of the lake. Where could he go? He had no one in the world to whom he could return. Every kinsman had been killed, there was no friend left who would welcome him. He was still as much alone as if he were yet chained to his pillar in the dungeon. Lord Byron wrote his poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon,” from a true story. There was a prisoner, one Francois Bonivard, kept for four years in the dungeon of the Castle of Chillon, near Lake Geneva. €> Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. New and Pretty Fashions A ND you can make them for yourself with the greatest of ease! Send for the patterns right off—even if you haven’t done much sewing, they're quick and ' easy to follow. Each is accompa nied by a complete and detailed sew chart that answers your ev ery question. Gay and Perky Apron. It’s exactly right to call this pretty apron a “fashion,” because it fits as well as a dress and has an animated charm of its own. It positively will not slip off the shoulders when you have both hands in the dishpan—or any other time—and it completely pro tects your dresses from spatters and spots. Make it of linen, ging ham or percale and trim it with bright braid. / Dress With Bolero. This charming dress has details that belong in the very forefront of fashion—you see them in the most expensive models. The shirr ing at the waistline, the flare of the skirt, the wide shoulders, with puff sleeves, the whole effect of Our Presidents —★— ' Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams were elected by the house of representatives. Grover Cleveland, son of a Presbyterian minister, suc ceeded Chester A. Arthur, son of an Episcopalian minister. Zachary Taylor did not hear of his nomination until one month after the convention ad journed. Thirty-one men have served as Presidents of the United States. Herbert Hoover was the first President bom west of the Mis sissippi river. He was bom in West Branch, Iowa. swing and gayety, make it smart est of the smart! In silk print, flat crepe, taffeta or (for summer wear) linen or sheer silk, thia dress will be lovely. Be sure to wear a flower at the neckline, too. The Patterns. 1479 is designed for sizes 31. 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46 and 48. Size 38 requires 1% yards of 35-inch ma terial, with 5 yards of bias band ing or braid to trim. 1478 is designed for sizes 14, 16, 18, 20, 40 and 42. Size 16 requires 4 7 /g yards of 39-inch material for the dress and 1% yards of 39-inch material for,the jaUcet. Spring-Summer Pattern Book. Send 15 cents &r the Barbara Bell Spring and Summer Pattern Book which is now ready. It con tains 109 attractive, practical and becoming designs. The Barbara Bell patterns are well planned, accurately cut and easy to follow. Each pattern includes a sew-chart which enables even a beginner to cut and make her own clothes. Send your order to The Sewing Circle Pattern Dept., Room 1020, 211 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, I1L Price of patterns, 15 cents (in coins) each. © Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. lUcLPkilQ. S<UjA: A Time for Anger “Always a soft answer” is poor philosophy. Anger, righteous an ger, is as important and neces sary as lightning is to cleanse the atmosphere. When a young man sows his wild oats he often mixes too much old rye with them. “Reading makes a full man,’* as Bacon said, and observation makes an original one. People “let themselves in” for a good part of their troubles. Can one be aggressive and well- bred at the same time? Well, why not? Still Waters Take heed of still waters, they quick pass away.—^Herbert. 1 1 1 ' — FOR CUTS ROHM SNOW WHITE PETROLEUM JELLY CHEW LONG BILL NAVY TOBACCO v' -x V- :5: s ::sYV-. : Y •" Am pi;