Thursday,
August 5, 1915
Another chapter in the troubles of the Currys of Cass was taken up and ended at this court in that Mrs. Lillian Curry was tried upon an indictment for setting fire to the store that was burned last February. It will be remembered that Max Curry in the course of a few years merchandising had three fires, and he is now convicted and is serving a six year sentence for the second fire.
He was not at home at the time of the third fire, and the store being in charge of Mrs. Curry, she was suspected and an indictment was found against her.
She is a woman of fine, Christian character and has impressed the Marlinton people most favorably since her troubles brought her here. The people of her home town in Kentucky were aroused by the charge, and the leading men of that county came here to testify to her good standing. She comes out of the trials and tribulations without a stain upon her character and her acquittal was universally approved by the public. It is the consensus of opinion that she does not have even a guilty knowledge of her husband’s offenses. It is to be remembered that husbands do not tell their wives all that they do. They do not wish to disturb them, and besides, they claim that they are the best judges of what their wives ought to know.
It was proved at the trial that the fire originated in the daytime in the second story of the store building and it burned to the ground in daylight.
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J. Henry Rider, a one legged man, who has been in court before and who has been playing with fire, figuratively speaking, for about thirty years, came to trial at this court upon a charge of being a party to the fire which is the cause of the enforced habitation of both Max Curry and Arch Dilley at Moundsville at this time.
Many thought that J. Henry’s luck would pull him through without paying the extreme penalty of going to the grim black castle in the dreary waste outside of the city of Moundsville. But even his luck could not save him. His defense was extremely fine spun. He claimed to be innocent though he had knowledge that the fire was to be promoted and though he had taken hush money after the fire. This was like drawing a distinction between bologna and sausage, so the jury held an election and the result of the poll was that J. Henry should be granted a certificate admitting him board and expenses free to one of the most important institutions of the state.
He is gone, but not forever. We will confidently expect him back among us. He is a man of many good parts, but he is a little too apt to tamper with the laws of the state. Shaving the corners is never a good thing.
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Court was held in the height of hay harvest this year. The jurors who are nearly all farmers, were restless on account of the season of the year. Every possible season has been tried to get a period that would suit the farmers but the conclusion that has been reached is that it is impossible. Farming is a continuous performance and there is no time that is suitable for the head of the house to go away for any extended stay. There is sure to be either feeding, lambing, plowing, sowing, tilling, harvesting or selling going on. It must be confessed that the last setting of the courts, which bids fair to be permanent, was fixed not by trying to find a time that a farmer was not busy, but to make the three courts of the year to fall one every four months, and it is not likely that any change will be made in the calendar.
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The long arm of the law reached out and took away the cook of one of the families in town and placed her in jail for a period of eight months. As hard as it is to get good cooks, it seems almost enough to justify equitable interference and on the ground of irreparable injury, through an injunction.
The case was that against Maud Winston for cutting Lilly Rose… It was what might be called a domestic tragedy for the most of the domestics in the aristocratic part of the town were either principals or witnesses.
Maud went to the kitchen of a neighbor to borrow a necessary article for culinary purposes, to wit, an egg. There she saw Lilly, a visitor. Between the two there was bad blood. Maud left but didnot go home. She lingered near the yard gate. There was no one to say to her: “Come away from that garden, Maud!” In a few minutes Lilly followed and Maud seems to have gone into a rage, and seizing Lilly by the hair, cut a great lock of hair and cut and carved her face, destroying its beauty and marking the girl, Lilly, for life. Among other things her nose was almost cut off. The sympathy of the population seemed to be about evenly divided. But it is hard to excuse the use of a knife before a Pocahontas jury, and though the defendant had many lawyers, a verdict of guilty was found and sentence was imposed.
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“We have need of patience with ourselves and with others; with those below and those above us, and with our own equals; with those who love us and those who love us not; for the greatest things and for the least; against sudden inroads of trouble, and under daily burdens; disappointments as to the weather, or the breaking of the heart; in the weariness of the body, or the wearing of the soul; in our own failure of duty, or others’ failure toward us; in the everyday wants, or in the aching of sickness, or the decay of age; in disappointment, bereavement, losses, injuries, reproaches in heaviness of the heart, or in sickness amid delayed hopes. In all these things from childhood’s little troubles to the martyr’s suffering, patience is the grace of God, whereby we endure evil for the love of God.”E. B. Pusey
