Thursday, October 13, 1921
A fine snowstorm on Saturday and a big freeze Sunday morning laid low the late garden stuff.
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The sawmill and a big lot of lumber on Spring Creek, belonging to Withrow McClintic burned up last Sunday night. There was some insurance.
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Ira D. Brill has bought T. D. Moore’s property at the west end of the bridge. This makes Mr. Brill the owner of the entire square in which his store is located and adds greatly to the value of his property.
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M. Lacy Johnston, of Baltimore, drove his well-known horse, “Tom Thumb,” to town last week. He reports his daughter Miss M. L. Johnston, to be getting well from serious pistol shot wounds inflicted by a rejected suitor some weeks ago.
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Some years ago, we can remember when it was an ordinary thing for the jail doors to swing open for months at a time in this county, no prisoner being detained therein. Now there is a waiting list for the jail and, as a rule, it is booked to capacity. Standing room only in this earthly type of hell.
Here is the sad part about it all, and that is the youth of the prisoners.
Nearly all of them are young men, and they are all inarticulate young animals and they are not able to tell how come?
It looks like they just drifted into trouble. Loafers all, you might say.
Maybe we have seen an industrious man in jail, and in the dock, but we cannot recall one just now. They all are of a kind that a hard day’s work makes a lasting impression on their memories, and they have not learned that work is the only cure for all trouble and misery.
To sentence the prisoners to hard labor is something in the nature of a cruel and unusual punishment when you think how they are recruited.
There might be a sign put upon our jails: “Refuge for the young and idle.”
ANSWERING NERO’S AD
A commonsense Editorial by Bruce Barton
Here is a curious thing: John D. Brown, farmer, spends his life putting in crops, and digging up trees in one part of his farm and moving them to another part.
John D. Rockefeller, with a billion and a half, finds nothing that entertains him so much as putting in crops and digging up trees on one part of his place at Pocantico Hills and moving them to another part.
Henry Smith works all day and goes home at night and takes off his shoes and sits in his stocking feet.
Henry Ford, so someone told me in Dearborn, works all day and goes home at night and takes off his shoes and sits in his stocking feet.
Henry Smith, looking at Henry Ford, sees only an income of several thousand dollars a day. And it never occurs to him that about all you can buy with an income of several thousand dollars a day is the satisfaction of going home at night and taking off your shoes and sitting in your stocking feet and contemplating a good day’s work.
How did we get so mixed up on this question of work, anyway?
How does it happen that the man who has so little money that he must work, regards work as a servitude, while the man who has so much money that he does not need to work, can find no other pleasure so satisfying.
It all goes back to the first chapter of Genesis, I imagine. In those chapters, Adam is represented as being very much pleased when he had nothing to do but loaf in the Garden of Eden, and very much penalized when he was given a chance to get out of the Garden and work.
The ancient error – that work is bitter and the escape from work is joy – is responsible for very many of our present problems.
“Life would be tolerable if it were not for the pleasures,” Sir George Cornwall Lewis said.
That remark is not as cynical as it sounds. What agonies people do suffer in their set determination to have a good time! What a tasteless dish pleasure becomes, when you have it for every meal!
Nero discovered that.
With unlimited money and power at his command, he advertised a rich reward for anyone who could invent a new pleasure.
No one answered his advertisement.
He should have received a brief, crisp answer in the first morning mail:
“I noticed your ad,” the answer should have read. “Why don’t you go to work?”
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Thumbnail sketches of the men who were summoned from Pocahontas county to serve on the Mingo jury, continued…
C. P. McNeill, married, lives at Buckeye, and is a farmer and truckman. Had no feelings against capital punishment where it was warranted by the evidence. Had read of the case at bar, or the incidents which brought it about, but had formed no opinion in the matter. Felt he could give a fair and impartial verdict in accord with the evidence. Had seen jury service before. Not related to anyone connected with the case.
I. B. Beard is a farmer, 49, living near Marlinton. He stated that he had no opinion, prejudice or bias in the case. Had heard of the shooting and other circumstances in connection with the troubles in Mingo county. Had read the New York World and The Pocahontas Times, but did not remember reading of an account of the shooting. Declared he had a free and open mind and could render a verdict according to the evidence.
Paul Overholt stated that he is a merchant at Marlinton. Is 26 years old. He had talked with relatives of George Gunnoe, former Matewan school teacher, and in this way had formed some opinions regarding the Matewan shooting and the industrial troubles in the county. Said his opinions would require evidence to overcome, but that they could be affected by the testimony of witnesses.
Harry L. Byers, 28, a bank clerk at Marlinton, employed by the First National Bank, is married. Was not opposed to capital punishment, but had an opinion that could be changed by evidence. He had got his information from relatives who knew of conditions in Mingo county and who were at Matewan at the time of the shooting. He was excused from service.
T. S. Dulaney is 50 years old, married, a contractor, and lives at Wood-row. Said he knew nothing about unions and had no feelings in the matter. Knew nothing of the case at bar, and was not opposed to capital punishment. Had heard little or no discussion of the case, and when asked if he could go into the jury box and give a fair and impartial verdict, answered with an emphatic “Absolutely.”
To be continued…
