38 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



The Glue Factory JVext to the Duck- 

 toWn Lumber Yard. 



When the glue factory at Duektown burned 

 one night last summer, the joke was on the 

 Ducktown Saw & Planing Mill. It was such 

 a big joke that, though Mr. Henegar, the 

 president of the factory, had but sixty-five 

 per cent insurance on his property, he had to 

 laugh while the flames were at their height — 

 so hard that one of the pipemen of Company 

 No. 6 had to hold him. 



When the conflagration first broke out Mr. 

 Spenee, the secretary of the sawmill, seeing 

 the sky becoming full of illuminated soot iu 

 that direction — for his place was ne.xt door to 



"Henegar bruke forth 



the glue factory — put on his Panama at once 

 and traced put the source of the soot. Arriv- 

 ing there, he saw that his investments were 

 not in danger, so he smiled with much en- 

 thusiasm and, tossing the hat into the atmos- 

 phere, said ' ' Hurrah ! ' ' three times. Then 

 going over to Mr. Henegar, who was watching 

 the destruction of his property, Spenee began 

 to condone with him at once. He even went 

 BO far as to offer his lumber yard to him for 

 a temporary glue factory. 



But while conversing thus the water from 

 the fire department and the heat from the fire 

 started a lot of glue stored on his third floor 

 to running. As the lumber yard and mill was 

 situated on lower real estate than the glue 

 institution, quite naturally the glue upon 

 being transformed sauntered toward it and 

 began to wend sinuously about the various 

 piles of seasoned and unseasoned lumber. 



Upon seeing this Spenee became less joyous 

 and sympathetic. In fact, he adjourned his 

 smile "sine die" and began to worry. He 

 worried a heap, too, for there in the path of 



the flux wi're six piles of oak and hickory 

 boards ready to be shipped to a plow factory 

 at Eogersville next day. Around these the 

 glue surged and boiled and rising higher and 

 higher each minute, submerged each one half 

 way to the top before receding. 



So quite naturally Henegar, who had been 

 glum and out of humor all evening, broke 

 forth into a smile and then a laugh. He 

 offered his sympathy to Spenee, even going 

 so far as to say that the glue yard was at 

 his disposal if he cared to unstick and thaw 

 out his hickory and oak. 



' ' Quit your kidding, ' ' said Spenee. ' ' Can 't 

 you see that your blame glue is damaging my 

 prosperity?" And, shaking his fist at Hene- 

 gar, he withdrew from the conflagration. 



The following morning, after several hours 

 of troubled sleep, Spenee dressed and went at 

 once to the scene of the previous night 's dis- 

 aster. There he had a conversation with his 

 vard foreman and discussed the best method 



urned Spenee. 



lue the seasoned property and make it 

 into salable lumber again, for it had become 

 once more only virgin wood in the rough. 



The yard foreman agitated the top of his 

 head with a fingernail for a moment and then 

 smiled blandly. He said he could straighten 

 out matters all right so that the seasoned oak 

 and hickory wouldn't be lost at all. 



"How?" inquired his boss, feverishly. 



"By simply cutting it over again with the 

 band-saw. Easy as pie! Treat the piles of 

 stuck lumber as so many big logs ! ' ' 



"Blame good idea," returned Spenee, 

 much encouraged; "but can you saw through 

 glue?" 



"Sure; the same as paper." 



So the foreman assembled a gang of men 

 around the piles and, knocking them down as 

 far as the glue line, hauled the stuck portions 

 to the sawmill. They were placed on the car- 

 riage and the signal given for the latter to 

 start toward the saw. It did so, and with a 

 sound similar to a resined bow being drawn 

 across a fiddle string, said saw dispersed the 

 glue, with the result that in an hour the 

 lumber was all cut over again and had the 

 same market value it possessed two days 

 before. 



After the job was finished Spenee filled a 

 gunny sack full of glue sawdust and took it 

 home for domestic use in mending broken fur- 

 niture and other articles around the house. 

 As he threw the stuff over his shoulder he 

 told the foreman not to tell Henegar about it 

 for fear he would send in a bill. 



GuiDO D. Jones. 



Cornered at Last. 



Within the last few days the courts have 

 intertencd in the long uninterrupted swindling 

 career of the notorious Charles G. Horton — a 

 man who has preyed upon the lumber trade 

 for nearly twenty years past. Absolutely de- 

 void of moral scruples, endowed with consid- 

 erable literary ability, a smooth tongue, the 

 "gift of gab," and a (borough knowledge of 

 human nature — he has brought chagrin to hun- 

 dreds of small millmen throughout the country, 

 and in fact has succeeded in fleecing a few large 

 and well-posted lumber concerns. 



However, on June 18 he was sentenced in the 

 United States Court at New Yorli City for a 

 term of three months iu the county penitentiary 

 and a fine of $250, a penalty which though 

 small as compared with his offences, will at 

 least serve to keep him out of mischief for a 

 while, and should prove a good example for 

 others who may attempt to engage in like 

 enterprises. The judge lectured hiin severely 

 but said that in the case there were two miti- 

 ^'atiug circumstances — his poor health and his 



Iloitons great game has been to pose as a 

 commission merchant, soliciting shipments of 

 lumber preferably from small concerns, selling 

 such shipments at good market prices, and then 

 pocketing the proceeds without making remit- 

 tances to the shipper. Armed with a number 

 (if fictitious references and a large quantity of 

 the most attractive business literature, he 

 solicited shipments In every direction.^ His 

 methods seemed reasonable, his offers invariably 

 sounded plausible and attractive, and his prices 

 were just a trifle above the average, so that the 

 shippers were wont to bite without looking into 

 his references or questioning his methods to any 

 extent. 



As soon as a shipment was received Horton's 

 letters promptly stopped, and owing to the fact 

 that the shippers selected were usually located 

 at a considerable distance from New York, they 

 did not take the trouble to make an expensive 

 trip for tbe purpose of forcing collections; more- 

 over, the larger firms were never very anxious to 

 acknowledge the fact that they had been taken 

 in so easily. This probably accounts for the fact 

 that Horton conducted his brazen practices so 

 long without being detected. Again, the swin- 

 dler's name never appeared on his letter-heads, 

 but he transacted his affairs under various firm 

 names, his latest being the Consumers Lumber 

 Cotiipany. He appointed his stenographer secre- 

 tary-treasurer and took further methods to con- 

 ceal bis connections with the so-called company. 

 Horton has recently known that pressure was 

 being brought upon him, and his secretary-treas- 

 urer had made preparations for a trip to Ire- 

 land, and was only apprehended by the authorl- 

 lies one dav before Ibe boat snilod. 



