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MW& %lc?otk ? VOL. XXXII. KINGSTREE, SOUTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17,1918. NO. 46 i ?? ARMY OFFICER'S ! AWFUL CRlMES.j COMMITS ROBBERY, MURDER AND i SUICIDE AT CAMP FUNSTEN, I KANSAS, FRIDAY NIGHT. Camp Funston, Kan, January 12:?Identification today of Capt Lewis B Whistler by Kearney Wornall, the sole survivor of five men, who wpre attacked by an army cap tain bent on robbery of the camp bank last night, as the man who had perpetrated the crime, t^nd Captain Whistler's subsequent death by suicide have convinced army officers here that the search for the slayer is ended. Captain Whistler killed himself by tiring two bullets from an army rifle into his head. His death came afI ter Woraall had recovered consciousness at the base hospital and told questioning army officers the story of the tragedy in which the captain had killed with an axe four men, inr* i<\iiior Winters. nresident CiUUIIJ? \J I'UIIVI .. .... , , of the federal reserve bank of Kansas City, an intimate friend of the captain. An order was issued that all captains at the cantonment report at headquarters to have their finder prints taken. It was then that the shots from Captain Whistler's office were h^ard. A note was found with the body. It was written to.a woman whose name the authorities refused to divulge. It said: "I have been thinking of committing suicide for a long time, but I have never had a good reason, i Yesterday I went out and made myself a reason." The room in which Captain Whis-1 tier's body was found was smeared with blood spots. Blood soaked towels were found in the room and the table was spotted with it. Cap- j tain Whistler had borrowed two hatchets from a supply company ! yesterday, according to officers, and: . he borrowed two more today. L Army officers tonight declined to I say whether any of the money I which the robber is supposed to have obtained, was found in Captain Whistler's room. Wornall, who recovered conscious-! ness this morning, told the authorities that the murderer was an army eaptain whoBe face he recognized,, and who, he said, was a close friend j item KooH nf thp nrmv bank. Ui ITIUVVIO, IIVHM v> ? ^ Womall in describing the tragedy ^0^ said a man came to the door of the, bank about 8:30 o'clock last night, and rapped insistently. He was admitted and covering the five men with a revolver, forced Wornall to tie the hands of the four men after: which he tied Wornall's hands. %The man then proceeded to loot the bank safe and had reached the door, when Winters said to Wornall: "You I recognize him, don't you?" Wor-: ^ Ball answered that he did. The murderer turned to Winters Hp and said: W "You know me, do you?" "I sure do, you black scoundrel,"} was Winters' reply. Wornall says at this point the man hesitated and suddenly leaped * * TT. , at them swinging nis nana axe. ne truck the helpless men down, one : - by one. Wornall was the last struck, j Captain Whistler's former wife, from whom he was divorced about a year ago, and a son 14 years old, reside in Salina. Kan. His parents live at Goodland, Kan. Captain Whistler, who was about 40 years of age, fought in the p^ll Spanish-American war and' later saw; if considerable service in the Philippines. Mrs Whistler today received a letter from her former husband in which he said he was in good health and spirits. The letter, she thought, ] was written yesterday, although it was undated. j Ex-President Taft is expected to visit Camp Jackson January 2H. t Ka GOVERNMENT CLOSES PLANTS. Manufactories Shut Down for Five Dayt to Conserve Fuel. Washington, January 16.?America's manufacturing enterprises with but few exceptions in all States east of the Mississippi river were ordered by the government tonight to suspend operations for five days, beginning Friday morning, as a drastic measure for relieving the fuel famine. The order also included the States of Louisiana and Mimnesota. At the same time, as an additional means of belief, it was directed that industry and business generally, including all normal activities that require heated buildings, observe as a holiday every Monday for the next ten weeks. This will close on Mondays, not only factories, but saloons, stores, except for the sale of drugs and food, places of amusement and nearly all office buildings. While the order does not mention ship yards, it is known that they will be permitted to continue operations as usual, although munitions plants will be closed. The government's move came entirely without warning in an order issued by Fuel Administrator Garfield, with the approval of President Wilson, prescribing stringent restrictions governing the di.-tribution and use of coal. It was decided upon hurriedly by the President and government heacis as a uesperaie remedy fur the fuel crisis and the transportation tangle in the Eastern States. Kingstree School Notes After the good times incident to the holidays all haye settled down to hard work again. The basket ball courts are always full of boys and girls getting ready for some more match games. The girls are very enthusiastic over the game with Lake City which will be played here soon. There was a meeting of the Parent-Teacher association in the auditorium Monday afternoon, the sub jeci Deing mmi una uikouimiiuu can do to help in the war." First was a reading, "What other ParentTeacher Associations are doing," by Miss Logan. Several patriotic vocal selections were rendered by Misses Thorn and Sturgis, following which a general discussion was held as to what this association can do. It was decided that it should help organize a Junior Rid Cross society of all the school children. A Junior Red Cross committee, composed of Mrs Taylor, Mrs Arrowsmith and Miss Martha Jenkinson, visited the school Wednesday morning. After they had told us in chapel what the Red Cross society stands for they went to all the rooms finding out those who wished to be come memuer3. The contributions for the society already collected amount to over fifteen dollars and we are expecting more. This is a good beginning; let's all join and give, not only our money but our services whenever needed. ? Red Cross Executive Committee Meets. The Executive Committee of the local Red Cross chapter met this morning and elected as its chairman Rev G T Harman, vice Dr D P Frierson. resigned. It was also decided that the base ment of the public library be used as a workroom by the society, and this place will soon be fitted out and equipped for use. A man who gave his name as Walter Spoerman, suspected of having been an active figure in plots launched by Captain Boy-Ed, the former German naval attache, was arrested at Norfolk Monday and taken to Baltimore, under guard where, it wa9 understood, he would be turned over to agents of the de p^rtment of justice. lUNCLE SAM j HAVE ! SOUTHERN STATES A i BEANS?GOVERNMEN1 AT SMALL COST WIT , t Washington, January 15:?A new ! emergency has arisen. The United ,: States government will require large quantities of castor oil for lubricating aeroDlane engines. The .supply is sh: rt. and South Carolina, Georpia and Florida are poinp to bo called . upon to prow castor hears for the povernment, and for which the pov, ernment will pay prices which they believe will makeitamore profitable crop than any otker staple prown in , that section. Hundred? of thousands of dollars have been spent in conductinp ex' periments for findinp an' oil for lu* bricatinp the Liberty motors, ,, which will be used in flyinp machines, other than castor oil; but these experiments nave oeen in vain and the only oil that will flow under the atmospheric conditions met with by these machines is castor oil. In this country years ago castor oil was grown quite extensively and the leading Slatt-s were Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri; but. India,with labor which could be hired at 10 and 20 cents a day, furnished this oil so cheaply that the industry practically died out. The submarine has i taken toll and greatly reduced the 1 world's shipping facilities, and now 1 the industry must be revived, and in ; those sections where there is no dan1 ger of frostand in the sections where they have long growing seasons, and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida are expected to meet the emergency. ; T S Evans, assistant development OLD TOM LEE DEAD. J Former Head of China Town Laid Away in Oriental Splendor. New York, January 14: ?Tom Lee, Mayor of Chinatown, in the troublesome feud days before the fadinj? of that picturesque quarter of New York's East Side, was buried today with all the pomp and splendor of celestial rites. I ? tnna and. DUHlOfMS 111 Uliuaiunu nao ouopended. Thousands, including members of rival Tong organizations, 11 filed into the purple-draped death j chamber in the rooms of the On i Leong Tong to view the body, i Other thousands with bared heads lined the sidewalks of the East Side as the'cortege started on its way to ! the cemetery. A band of Chinese j trumpeters headed the procession ; followed by two American bands, one hundred and fifty carriages and i five sightseeing busses. In the coffin were placed a bottle of rice, wine, several coins and a pack of playing cards. Following the Oriental custom, roat pig, chickens, cakes and other foods were left at the grave, but today, lest they be ! consumed by irrevrent Occidentals, I ! thev were carried back to Chinai town. M Brockington-EUis. Interesting was the marriage : which took place at the Kellahar. i1 1 Hotel here Friday evening at 6 o'clock when Miss Jewell Brockington became the bride of Mr Everette Ellis. The ceremony was performI ed by the Baptist minister. Rev E A I MacDowell. The bride is the youngest daughter of Mrs W S Brockington of Nesmith and is a charming and popular young woman. ' Mr Ellis is a young man of Harts| ville. but at present is engaged in , the lumber business at Nesmith, i where the young couple will make I their home. I The Senate last week refused to change the lien law of South CaroliniC. ^ MUST ; CASTOR OIL RE ASKED TO PLANT ? WILL FURNISH SEED H LIBERAL RETURN. agent of the Seaboard Air Line Railj way company.with offices at Hamlet, i N C, has been given a contract to secure the planting of 10.000 acres to castor beans, and the farmers of South Carolina and Georgia are expected to grow anywhere from five to 100 acres or more for him. The government is going to furnish the seed at exact cost to the govern! ment.plus the co>t of transportation; I but they are not to be paid for until i after the crop is grown, and from the crop. Mr Evans will be authorized to pay to any farmer who will grow these beans $3 per bushel for ' his entire crop,delivered at the near' est railroad station. Those who have grown castor ! beans say that it is one of the easiest crops produced. There is no insect pest which is known to attack it. i Animals and livestock will not eat it. A bushel consists of 46 pounds and the price paid will be better than 6 je per pound, and in times past they j have been profitably grown at 3c per ' pound. Any farmeis desiring to secure ! seed and grow this crop under a con tract in South Carolina or Georgia ! will be expected to address T S Evj ans at Hamlet, N C. It is not onlv a ' patriotic duty to grow these beans, ! but it is profitable as well, and it is helping to win the war. Posters will be furnished to all farmers growing this crop, which they can po3t upon their farms, showing that they are doing their bit towards helping to win the war. I A DRESSED-UP CHICK. A Missouri Bird Enjoys Artificial Covering. What is conceded to be the funniest looking object ever seen in Missouri is a chicken attired in pants, coat and cap, running about the poultry flock of Mrs L F Belton. It was during the first cold spell | some time ago that Mrs Belton no| ticed the chick, which had practically no feathers at all, shivering in the chilly wind. She knew that the chicken could not long endure the cold and decided that its life was worth saving: so she took it into the house and proceeded to dress it up. She made for it a pair of pants with a bib, which covered its featherless breast; a coat for its bare back, and a cap for its bald head. After sewing these garments securely onto the chicken she turned it i loose. It passed the first day in vainly ! trying to step out of its qew trous' ers, but it soon grew accustomed to ! them, and became the liveliest bird in the flock. It is now almost feathered out and. as Mrs Belton says, will have | to be undressed before it can ever J be dressed. Death of Mrs M L Guess Mrs M L Guess, of the Salters section, died at her home there Sunday and was buried Tuesday in the cemetery of the Methodist church at Salters. Mrs Guess was only twenty-one years of age. Before marriage she was Miss Lizzie Johnson, daughter .f T D T/\KnaAri arxA ?tto? ? I.Jn ,.t ; ui x iv uuiiuouii, auu was a laujr ui i exemplary Christian character. The ! deceased had been in bad health for | about a year, although her death j came as a grievous shock to her many friends. She is survived by her husband and parents, four sisters and five brothers. A bill has been introduced in the State Senate,the provisions of which prohibit the sale of Jamaica ginger and alcoholic extracts. KINGSTREE SOLDIER BOY WEDS. Wo G Gamble, Jr. Married to Miss Luc3 i Hammond, of Charleston, Saturday J A telegram received here MonijdaybyDrand Mrs W G Gamble j from their son, William G Gamble jJr, announcing; his marriage ir Charleston on the evening of the j 12th inst to Miss Lucy Hammonc I was a surprise to the friends of the family. The young man is a soldier at Camp Sevier and the oaly child of Dr and Mrs Gamble. The bride is a popular and accomplished vounp Pk^^lacf/in on-i nnlc r'nilfrh. ; Idl] V Wi Vital ICOVUii uti<a VMIJ V4 M?.n.. I ter of David L Hammond and his wife Lucy Caroline Randall of Aiken, and a grandaughter of the late Dj Abney L Hammond, a prominent surgeon in the Civil war. The marriage took place at tho heme of the ! bride's parents. i State and General News Condensed. The plant of the Carolina Veneei j Co at Colombia was burned Friday, entailing a loss of $100,000. i Mr Eugene F Douglas, a prominent business man of Florence, died at Anderson Saturday morning. About 100 people were killed or i injured in the tornado that swept over parts of Georgia and Alabama last week. The public schools of Atlanta, Ga, 1 have been closed this week and the | coal they had on hand has been sold ; to the public. On account of the fuel shortage a woodworking plant in Charleston has been compelled to use valuable ! i 1 ? - _ | lumoer iur urni*. i A primary will be held in Sumter county Saturday to elect successors to Representatives W L McCutehee and A K Sanders, resigned. On account of the fuel situation, St Michael's and St Philip's Episcopal churches, Charleston, are holding union services Sunday afternoons in each church alternately. Experts on cattle tick eradicatioc are in convention at New Orleans, devising plans for a grand drive tc 1 free ,3outh Carolina and other States from the pest this year. A special election will be held ir Richland county tomorrow to fill two vacancies in the House of Representatives. There are six candidates, among them John T Duncan, John R Tolbert, former collectoi of customs for the port of Charles ton, died at Ninety-Six J hursday aged 84 years. He was probably the most prominent Republican in South Carolina. A solid car of mail on the Flor ence-Augusta ACL train was dis covered to be on fire at Cameror Thursday morning and the contents mostly packages for the troops ai Augusta, were ruined. Thirteen Indian boys were burnec to death in a fire which destroyec the domitory of the Dwight Indiar Training school at Marble City, Ok lahoma. Monday. More than a hun> dred escaped scantily clad in the bitter cold. The conviction of Emma Goldmar and Alexander Berkman. on the charee of conspiracy againist the draft law. has been sustained by the ! supreme court, and these notorious ) anarchists will spend some time be ! hind the bars. | Rev A S Thomas, for nine years j rector of St David's Episcopal church j Cheraw, has accepted a call to the Church of the Good Shepherd, Co lumbia, and will give special atten tion to work among the soldiers ai Camp Jackson. He is a brother ol Rev Haroid Thomas,late of Florence but now of Charleston. Reviewing the first year of Germany's ruthless submarine campaign, when it ends February 1, the Tageblatt claims that more thar 800,000 tons of shipping were sunt monthly so far, and the total will show nearly ten million tons, the newspaper says. The monetary loss to the enemies will reach fifty billior dollars. A quantity of army supplies, in eluding $1,000,000 worth of food was destroyed, the quartermastei I warehouse ruined, and several othei j buildings damaged by a fire Mondaj I at the Washington barracks occu i ?* ?? ? j. * i ; piea Dy engineers truups. t\ luigt part of the city's fire apparatus wa; i J called upon to fight the flamei j which were given impetus by th< explosion of a quantity of gasolim I SITUATION REMAINS IN DOUBT TALK CONTINUES UNOFFICIALLY i OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS?ARl MISTICE TO FEBRUARY 18. J Although there is still talk in un ' official quarters of the possibility of final breaks in the peace negotiations between the central powers and the ' Bolsheviki, the armistice evidently ?: has been extended to February 18 and it is reported that the pour1 parlers will be transferred shortly from Brest Litovsk to Warsaw. Late advices indicate that there was considerable haggling between I # the opposing delegates at Brest' Litovsk the latter part of last week. ? i m _x_i i.i i_* ? : ; iroiZKy,DOisneviKi iort-ix" uuuisurr, as in the previous deliberations. ! proved recalcitrant with regard to ! the German formula "that'the con' trading parties have resolved hencei forth to live in peace and friend: ship" declares that it is a "decora- ? [jtive phase" and did not describe \k> what the future relations between i . j the Russian and German peoples ;! would be. : I Internal strife continues in various parts of Russia. Bolshevik troops are reported to have cleared General Kaledines' Cossacks from II ; the Don River basin and to have , i captured Kkaternoslav. Following i jprevious reports of a mutiny of sail1! ors at Sebastopol where 62 officers, among them four admirals, were killed, Russian soldiers are declared ' to have looted the town of Kilia and i i in fighting with the Ukrainians to to have forced the second Ukrainian . regiment to surrender and lay down : j 7,000 rifles and 13 machine guns. The Petrograd garrison also apt norantlv ia nut nf VianH l'HIa QnMiorft { H? having been reported as going into i the provinces and taking food from > the inhabitants and bringing it back to the capital and selling it at ex| orbitant prices. The Social Revolutionary mem. bers of the constituent assembly in . Russia are opposed tc a general peace at Russia's expense and de clare that the Bolsheviki are "usurp|! ers of power, who have precipitated jj the country into an abyss of civil | war and anarchy." j Speculation is rife concerning the "! conference that is being held in Beri I m 0 lin between the military and politi[ cal leaders in which Emperor William ana the crown prince also have 1 participated. "A death struggle is 1 now proceeding between the reich1 stag peace majority and the mili' i tary annexationist party" says a [! Bavarian newspaper, which adds that it does not know which the ! government will support and that ; Egyptian darkness "enshrouds the I nation's peace terms." ' j Cold weather and snows are stil] . | retarding the infantry activity on ! the battle fronts, where no fighting 3; of moment is taking place, except , | in the nature of small patrol engage ; ments and artillery duels. Notwith" | standing the fact that similar conJ:i.: ii i i A. i_ At _ n ?A .; unions prevaueu iasi weeK, me critf! ish casualties for the seven days ?jedding last Monday were 24,979 compared with 18,998 the previous week and 9,951 the week- before that. . | Black River Locals I Born, to Mr and Mrs J J Poston, J of Bloomingvale, on January 5, a ' fine daughter, weighing about 14 i pounds. Mother and baby getting on fine. We are 9orry to learn that the 5 i year old son of Mr and Mrs J J Pos ^1 ton had the misfortune to cut off one . of the finders on hi9 left hand. \ Mr and Mrs C H Benton spent ...Sunday afternoon with Mr and, Mrs J P J McGee. "i _ 3i 3 Lee county has imported 40 fine ? Guernsey heifers, one of the best i strains of cattle in the world. JJ