January 1900
OUR WEAK POINT
One of our London subscribers (how we swell whenever we think that we have subscribers in London) hits The Pocahontas Times in its tenderest place. He writes the innuendo, and we get to hear of it by his correspondent’s burst of misplaced confidence. We cannot afford to miss printing a good joke just because it is on us. It is:
“The Pocahontas Times has slain more English since the war began than the armies of Paul Kruger.”
We fear it does not help crimes of this kind to say that they were committed unintentionally. We belong to the vast majority over whom Mr. Lindley Murray wept and tried to reclaim. A murderer of the King’s English in our teens, we have committed many a capital crime since.
Little combinations such as “have went,” hadn’t ought to,” “have come” creep into the copy and shock our friends. But we plead in extenuation that our editor was reared in a hard school – a weather-beaten old school on top of a hill, where the school teacher wore his breeches on the inside of his boots, and where Sammy Saurkraut, who earned twenty-five cents a week by not eating meat at home, came to be publicly instructed. In that school the predicate never agreed with the subject except by chance. …
BIG TRACT OF LAND SOLD
L. M. McClintic, as special commissioner, made a private sale of 2,519 acres of land on the headwaters of Williams River and Cranberry, known as the Edmiston lands. The consideration is $20,136, and the purchaser was E. W. Campbell, of Warrenton, Pennsylvania…
This sale increases the chances for a branch road up Stony Creek from Marlinton. … After a branch road crosses the divide between Stony Creek and the waters of Williams River, the connection with the Camden system will be assured. …
“Come Haste to the Hanging”
There is a right way and a wrong way to do every thing – even of hanging a man in Arizona; and the Sheriff of Navajo County has learned what out there is believed to be the right way, after having gone about the business wrong.
Early in December, he sent out this invitation on black-edged paper:
“Holbrook, Ariz., Dec. 1, 1899
Mr. …
You are hereby cordially invited to attend the hanging of one
GEO. SMILEY, Murderer.
His soul will be swung into eternity Dec. 8, 1899, at 2 o’clock p.m., sharp.
Latest improved methods in the art of scientific strangulation will be employed, and everything possible will be done to make the proceedings cheerful and the execution a success.”
In spite of the black-edged paper, social critics of Navajo County commented on the tone of the invitation as being too cheerful.
The sheriff harkened to his mentors, postponed the execution and sent out this invitation, also on black edged paper:
Holbrook, Ariz., Jan.1, 1900
“Mr. …
With feelings of profound sorrow and regret, I hereby invite you to attend and witness the private, decent, and humane execution of a human being; name, George Smiley; crime, murder.
The said George Smiley will be executed on January 8, 1900, at 2 o’clock p.m.
You are expected to deport yourself in a respectful manner, and any “flippant” or “unseemly” language or conduct on your part will not be allowed. Conduct on anyone’s part bordering on ribaldry and tending to mar the solemnity of the occasion will not be tolerated.”
The trouble is due to the fact that the Penal Code of Arizona requires the Sheriff to issue invitations to executions…
MARRIED
A rather romantic and picturesque wedding transpired at Marlinton Tuesday afternoon when John Richard Showalter and Miss Nancy Margaret Jane Alice Tracy were married seated in their buggy in front of the Marlinton Manse; Wm. T. Price officiating.
The groom is a well-known and much respected young farmer of the Linwood vicinity. The bride is a daughter of J. P. Tracy. … Immediately after the ceremony the party set out for Elk, where a reception awaited them at the home of Samuel Gibson, who is a brother-in-law of the groom. …
DIED
Mrs. Harvey Boblett, nee Grimes, died at her home near Mill Point last Saturday of Bright’s disease. She leaves surviving her, her husband and 10 children, five sons and five daughters. She was buried Sunday evening at the McNeel burying ground.
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Mrs. Rebecca J. Hill, relict of George C. Hill, died near Lobelia November 24, 1899. She was born in Greenbrier county April 8, 1826, and was married in 1848 by Rev. James M. Clark. She was the mother of 11 children, four of whom are living. She was a kind mother and a loving wife. Our sky is hung with black and somber cloud curtains; our vision is overcast with the gloom of sorrow and every sound that strikes our ear has in it a cadence of despair…
