Thursday,
April 5, 1917
The private citizen must trust in his government. He has not the knowledge to decide the propositions presented by the international questions. These must be decided by the President and the representatives in Congress. The citizen’s duty is to be ready to accept the decisions, for above all things the country must be united. He is ready to do his part for his country without murmur and without complaint, counting it a privilege to support his country in the hour of trial, that he may pay back in a small part, the ??inestimable blessing of liberty, and to preserve untarnished the honor of his country for the unnumbered generations that are to come after him. In this he must fail not. To this he pledges his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor.
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The British army was at Gaza the other day according to the dispatches close to Hebron and Jerusalem. In the same county as it were. The army will invest Jerusalem and this city will fall into Christian hands for the first time in many centuries. Gaza is the most important town in the Holy Land from a military standpoint, being the town nearest the line of Egypt. The name means the strong. Joshua was unable to conquer it. It is noted for its olive orchards…
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A gun trap set by her husband to catch a burglar, resulted in the death of Mrs. Arthur Shaw at Fairmont. A thief had been entering the home. Shaw fixed a gun, attaching a string to the trigger so that when the back door opened, the gun would go off. His wife returned from her visit and, trying to enter the house, was shot through the forehead
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Fred Sharp reports the killing of a red tailed hawk, which had a wing spread of four feet, five inches.
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Mrs. R. E. L. Smith, of Marshall, announces the engagement of her daughter, Virginia Lee, to Mr. Amos Lee Herold, of Cincinnati – Kansas City Star – Mr. Herold is the oldest son of Wise Herold of Knapps Creek, and is now a professor in the Cincinnati University.
CIRCUIT COURT
Tuesday the trial of Dr. O. A. Howard began. The first day was taken up largely in getting a jury. Forty jurors were drawn. Thirty-nine appeared. Thirty-five were called to the box and examined before a panel of twelve could be secured. The trial is going on at this time and bids fair to be a long one… There is no special feeling in the case so far as the public is concerned, but there is an intense interest being taken and the courthouse is jammed.
PANTHERS
Our old hunter friend Samuel M. Gibson, of Elk, called on us last week. During the last hunting season he had an attack of pneumonia, and so one year had to go by without him killing his legal number of deer.
However, he is well and strong again, and by this time, no doubt, he has been down the river and caught himself a mess of trout.
During the winter, reports came of the tracks of an immature panther being seen in the Elk region, and while Mr. Gibson had not seen any panther tracks, he thought it possible that a panther had strayed over from the Gauley wilderness which still shelters an occasional panther to this day.
Mr. Gibson says that when he first began hunting in Gauley, there were more panthers there then than there are deer now. He remembers one day when he and the late Harman Sharp were after a bunch of deer. The day was wet and foggy, and their mountain rifles had become so wet that it was doubtful about them firing, so they retraced their steps to camp. In a minute they came upon the tracks of four large panthers which had been following them. The panthers had been so close that the hunters would certainly have seen them had not the clouds been so low. They were none too sure of their guns, and the walk back to camp was none too pleasant…
Two years ago, Mr. Gibson was hunting in the Gauley wilderness with Little Jim Gibson. Many times during the day’s hunt they came upon the tracks of two panthers, which were evidently hunting deer also. The panthers were following the benches on the mountain, about two hundred steps from each other, just like two expert deer hunters, which no doubt they were. Mr. Gibson said they looked every place a deer was likely to be lying, and they traveled in such a way that if a deer was jumped he would likely run to the other one. Through every well known crossing the panthers went, and in every particular they were like two good hunters who knew the woods they were hunting in.
WILL WEST VIRGINIA FEED HERSELF?
“The food situation in the North is now quite serious and if war comes it will test the strength of our State and Nation to produce enough food crops to feed our soldiers, men working in the mines, oil fields and munition factories, and to produce supplies for the Government and those persons left at home,” says D. R. Titlow, Director of Agricultural Extension for West Virginia University co-operating with the U. S. Department of Agriculture. He further says that any state that does not carry its own burden at such times, that fails to support itself, that depends on other states for much of its food, “cannot be a tower of strength in the country’s hour of need.”
HATCH CHICKENS EARLY
Did it ever occur to you that nature requires her children to take an annual vacation. She does, and no where do human beings puzzle their brains over this fact more than when the hens begin their yearly holiday. This vacation is technically called the “molting season.” The hens stop laying and change their units of feathers for new ones. Usually they consume three or four months in the process. Most of us know this perfectly well, but are apt to overlook the fact that a very important feature of the molting period is that egg laying stops. We are unreasonable and expect the hens to lay all the time. When the hens take this vacation new laid fresh eggs are scarce and remain scarce until the pullets hatched during the preceding spring begin to lay.
The remedy is very simple and is under the control of the poultry man. The first step is to have chickens hatched early, so that the pullets begin to lay when the hens begin to molt. This is not difficult…
The best plan is to have chickens coming at intervals during March and April.
DURBIN
Some new buildings start-ed.
The Pocahontas Tanning Company has its new buildings half completed.
N. B. Arbogast has been handling some fine Jersey stock this past week.
Durbin does not want war; it wants potatoes at $2 per bushel.
HILLSBORO
Sam Sheets has sold his valuable farm at the foot of Droop Mountain to Giles McKeever of Greenbrier.
DIED
Mrs. Mary Rebecca Morrison died at the home of her brother, George W. McKeever, on Swago, Wednesday, March 28, 1917, after a long illness, aged 77 years, 6 months and 10 days.