1912. 
'TfciJL KURAIi NEW-YORKEB 
4H7 
OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. 
There seems to be more demand for in¬ 
formation about the progress of the E. G. 
Lewis trial on charges of alleged fraudulent 
use of the mails and the receiver suits 
than we realized. While we cannot go into 
lengthy details, in response to many re¬ 
quests we give the important developments 
for the past week : 
Former Treasurer Putnam and Mr. 
Radert, the accountant, testified that a 
dividend of 15 per cent was declared 
on the preferred stock of the Lewis 
Publishing Co. in the early part of 
1909, when the company was actually 
losing about $33,000 a month. The 
dividend would require $375,000; and 
the book surplus at the time was only 
$13,391.19. The assets were arbitrarily 
increased $600,000 on the books. Sev¬ 
eral witnesses testified that they sent 
their money to Lewis for the stock, re¬ 
lying on his promise that the 15 per 
cent dividend 'would be paid, and that 
the business was profitable. They swore 
that they would not have sent the mon¬ 
ey if they knew the company was be¬ 
ing run at a loss. Only 2y 2 per cent 
of the dividend was ever paid. 
Advertisements were also read show¬ 
ing that Lewis represented a pool had 
been formed to buy up the stock of 
holders who wanted to sell. The stock¬ 
holder had an option of cash or stock 
in his new bank in exchange for this 
surrendered stock. Mr. Putnam said 
that $225,000 of the stock was sent in, 
but it was never sold. It is there yet. 
Instead of selling this stock as promised 
when new money came in, Lewis sent 
back his own stock which he had turned 
over to the company on credit. Put¬ 
nam averred this was done because the 
company needed the money. Of course, 
the promised dividend and the prom¬ 
ised ready market through the alleged 
pool influenced many people to buy the 
stock. Putnam said there never was 
any pool. 
Hugh K. Taylor, a former employee, 
testified that Lewis put about $70,000 
into machinery for the Daily Star which 
he published after he had pledged his 
entire income to the payment of five 
per cent notes. This paper lost $20,000 
a month, and the Lewis Publishing 
Company had to “send down the mon¬ 
ey.” Thus the two publishing com¬ 
panies were running at a loss of $53,- 
000 a month. 
The Star owes the Lewis Publishing 
Co. now $531,404.19, according to the 
books, but the collection of it is doubt¬ 
ful. 
Taylor testified that he had talked of 
the losses with Mr. Lewis, and opposed 
the increase of salaries, but Mr. Lewis 
made the increase and said the money 
for them would come. He averred Mr. 
Lewis knew that the Woman’s National 
Daily was losing about $20,000 a month, 
but that Lewis said it was a good in¬ 
vestment, as it advertised the other 
Lewis concerns and was the chief organ 
of the American Woman’s League. 
Mr. Putnam testified that Lewis’ sal¬ 
ary was $500 a week; Putnam’s, treas¬ 
urer, $125; and Miller, secretary, $125. 
Mr. Taylor drew $125 a week, and 
Judge Shepard Barclay had a retainer 
of $10,000 a year and free office rent. 
On cross-examination of witness an 
attempt was made to lay the blame for 
the failure of the Lewis Publishing 
Company to investigations of the post- 
office, and criticisms by The Rural 
New- Yorker, referred to as an Eastern 
paper, but Treasurer Putnam admitted 
that there was no investigation of the 
company by inspectors for over three 
years, after the papers were admitted 
to the mails in the latter part of 1907 
to February, 1911. The R. N.-Y. did 
not attempt to collect claims of its sub¬ 
scribers until the Fall of 1910. Unfor¬ 
tunately there was little to collect from 
at that time or since. 
On cross-examination of Government 
witness the court ruled out questions by 
which the defence tried to intimate that 
the failure of the business to make 
money was due to the post-office inter¬ 
ference. The court ruled that it was 
sufficient for the prosecution to show 
that the investors relied on Lewis’ 
statement as to the financial condition 
of his concerns, and that the statements 
were false, and were wilfully and in¬ 
tentionally false. 
A pitiable story was told in the testi¬ 
mony of Charles F. Morrison, a farmer 
of Springfield, Mo., who with his wife 
invested $6,100 in the Lewis concerns, 
when he lived at Lansing, Mich. All he 
has for his money is an interim receipt. 
A letter written to Lewis before he in¬ 
vested was read in which Mr. Morrison 
stated that himself and wife are ad¬ 
vanced in years and dependent on the 
income of the money. He is infirm, with 
poor eyesight, and is trying to make a 
living on a farm. 
At the creditors’ meeting last week 
Lewis and Williams had separate can¬ 
didates for trustee of bankruptcy in 
the publishing company. Mr. Flail rep¬ 
resented the greatest number of cred¬ 
itors, but no choice was made, and 
Master Cole appointed Judge Reynolds 
as trustee, and we believe all the cred¬ 
itors, including those who were led 
into the so-called reorganization scheme 
will have the privilege of filing their 
own claims, and receiving their share 
of the proceeds direct from the re¬ 
ceiver, without allowing any rake-off to 
Mr. Williams or anyone else. The 
losses will be heavy enough at that. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Ice and steel saved the 
lives of most of the passengers of the 
Twentieth Century Limited March 13 when 
a broken rail snapped five cars of that 
flyer over an embankment that edges the 
Hudson River a few miles above Pough¬ 
keepsie. The heavy river ice stopped the 
plunge of the cars, bore their weight and 
gave time for passengers to escape drown¬ 
ing. The steel cars withstood a shock 
that would have broken and splintered 
wooden coaches. If the accident had oc¬ 
curred in a warm season there would have 
been surely a dreadful story to tell, for 
under the curve of the embankment on 
which the Century lost her grip is 15 feet 
of water. Pour of the cars, perhaps all 
five, that were catupulted onto the ice 
would have gone under completely and their 
occupants—many of whom were in their 
berths or were dressing—would not have 
had a ghost of a chance. As it was, the 
wreck killed no one. Twenty-five were in¬ 
jured, a few seriously, but in no case 
are the injuries likely to prove fatal. 
A fugitive locomotive spark will cost 
the Central Railroad of New Jersey about 
§16,000 if the New .Jersey courts aflirm 
the verdict rendered March 13 in the Cir¬ 
cuit Court at Jersey City. The jury 
awarded $12,900 damages with interest 
from April 12. 1908, to the Janch-Allen 
Company, owners of the Hotel Normandie 
at Seabright, N. J., which was destroyed 
by fire on the date mentioned. The blaze 
started on the roof immediately after a 
train had passed, the locomotive of which 
left a stream of sparks in its trail. 
John Early, the leper over whom scien¬ 
tists have disagreed, will no longer be 
shipped about the country in box cars. 
President Taft, Secretary MacVeagh and 
Surgeon General Blue, of the Public Health 
Service, have found a place for him at the 
Point Diamond quarantine station, near 
Port Townsend, Wash., where he will take 
care of Andrew Grover, a leper, over whom 
there is no dispute. Early’s case has been 
a pitiful one. While scientists disagreed 
he was isolated in one city, then shipped 
across the continent in a box car, and has 
never been able to earn money enough to 
support his family. He has an honorable 
discharge from the army, and in addition 
to his pension will get a small salary at 
Point Diamond. 
The United States Government took de¬ 
cisive action March 13 to thwart a gigan¬ 
tic conspiracy on the part of the old leaders 
under the Diaz regime in Mexico to pro¬ 
mote the present revolution against Madero 
While the United States Government has 
no evidence directly connecting the deposed 
President himself with this Conspiracy, 
it is believed that his former friends and 
supporters are behind it. A big sum of 
money, estimated at $4,000,000, has been 
reposited in banks in El Paso for the pur¬ 
pose of buying arms and ammunition to be 
shipped from the United States into Mexico 
for the use of the revolutionists. A reso¬ 
lution was adopted by the Senate which 
constitutes an extension of power granted 
to the President of the United States back 
in the Spanish war days. It is in the 
form of an amendment to a joint resolution 
adopted on April 22, 1898, giving the Presi¬ 
dent power to prohibit the export of coal 
or other material used in war from any 
seaport of the United States. This reso¬ 
lution was passed for the purpose of pre¬ 
venting the shipment of coal from Ameri¬ 
can ports to the Spanish ships, several 
persons having shown a disposition to take 
advantage of the big profits to be made 
through such sales. The President and the 
other Government officials have been em¬ 
barrassed in enforcing the neutrality laws 
up to this time by being obliged to prove 
that the shipments constituted an actual 
military expedition before they could be 
seized. This limitation was placed upon 
the Government officials by decisions of 
the Supreme Court. When the revolution¬ 
ists obtained control of the custom house 
at Juarez, Madero appealed to President 
Taft to prevent the shipment of arms and 
ammunition through that port of entry. This 
the President has been unable to do iegally, 
and munitions of war have daily been pass¬ 
ing into Juarez and falling into the rebels’ 
hands. 
A gang of mountaineers and moonshiners 
known as the Allens shot and killed Circuit 
Judge Thornton L. Massie March 14 in the 
little red brick county court house at Hills- 
ville, the county seat of Carroll county, on 
the southern border of Virginia ; killed Com¬ 
monwealth’s Attorney William L. Foster, 
and Sheriff Lew Webb * and mortally 
wounded A. C. Cane, a juror; A. C. Fow¬ 
ler, a juror; Dexter Good, a clerk of the 
court, and Stuart Warrall, a spectator. 
Floyd Allen, the leader of the gang, got 
two bullets. Seventeen of the outlaws then 
backed out of the court room, exchanging 
shots with the jurors and the deputy 
sheriffs, who had drawn guns the moment 
the fusillade on the county officers and 
jurors began, and escaped, some on horse¬ 
back, into the mountains. 
Nearly 7,000 men and women textile 
operatives, who with many others went on 
strike at Lawrence, Mass., almost nine 
weeks ago, in a mass meeting on the Com¬ 
mon, March 14, voted unanimously to 
abide by the l’ccommendations of the strike 
committee of the Industrial Workers of 
the World that they accept the new wage 
scale and working conditions tendered by 
the American Woolen Company, the Kun- 
hardt Worsted Mills and the Atlantic Cot¬ 
ton Mills. The strike will be continued 
against the Pemberton, the Arlington Cot¬ 
ton and Worsted, the Pacific Cotton and 
Worsted, the Uswoco Worsted, the Law¬ 
rence Duck and the Brightwood Woolen 
Mills; the Farwell Bleachery and the In¬ 
ternational Paper Company. The Everett 
Mills, which have been closed since the 
strike began, will probably reopen, it being 
understood that this concern has agreed to 
meet the new scale tendered by the woolen 
company. 
A tornado struck Headland, Ala., March 
15. It cut a swath through the little town, 
killed five people outright and fatally in¬ 
jured a dozen others. A train on the At¬ 
lantic Coast Line passed through the storm 
and was almost blown from the track. 
An aged man’s loss of his savings 
through dealing with Cardenio F. King, 
the promoter now serving a term in a 
Massachusetts prison, must be paid by the 
company for which King was acting, under 
a ruling by the Appellate Division of the 
Supreme Court March 15. The concern is 
the Douglas Copper Company, which is 
directed to pay $1,520. M. L. Eldridge, of 
Davenport, la., who is 65 years old, saw 
what the Appellate Division calls a “broad¬ 
side” in King’s financial bulletin in 1907, 
offering bonds of the copper company for 
“one week longer” at 110, and saying that 
the price would advance in a week. Mr. 
Eldridge sent $1,081 in full payment for 
one of the bonds, but shortly after got a 
letter from King saying that he was then 
able to offer a new series of bonds at 152, 
which were more valuable than the bond 
bought by Eldridge because they could be 
exchanged for stock at $5 a share at any 
time while the other bond could only be 
exchanged for stock at $10 a share in 1909. 
King said he had given Eldridge credit 
for the money he had sent on the pur¬ 
chase of a new bond and the Iowa man 
took the bait and sent on the additional 
$438 due. Eldridge never got the bond and 
received nothing but worthless promissory 
notes. After King became bankrupt and 
was convicted Eldridge got credit for his 
claim, but the Appellate Division finds that 
there is no likelihood that he will ever get 
a dividend. The court finds that King was 
the agent of the copper company in the 
transaction and that the copper company 
is responsible to him for the act of the 
agent. 
The Tennessee Supreme Court March 16 
held that the law prohibiting the manufac¬ 
ture of intoxicating liquors within the 
State, enacted in 1909, is constitutional. 
The case was that of Lem Motlow, pro¬ 
prietor of Jack Daniel whiskey, who oper¬ 
ated a great distillery in Moore County. 
Under the affirmation of the verdict of the 
lower court, Motlow, a man of great 
wealth, is sentenced to pay a fine and serve 
six months in the Moore County Work- 
house. Motlow averred that he had the 
right to make whiskey in Tennessee to be 
shipped into other States. The case will 
be appealed to the United States Supreme 
Court. 
The explosion of a locomotive at the 
Southern Pacific shops at San Antonio, 
Tex., March 18, caused the death of 33 
persons, and injuries, some fatal, to 54 
others. There is a general belief that the 
disaster was due to some explosive. The 
men at work in the shops principally were 
strike breakers brought into San Antonio 
by the Southern Pacific when the strike of 
machinists began last Fall. Hardly a ves¬ 
tige of the engine which exploded remains. 
The jacket of the boiler, which weighs 
more than half a ton, was thrown more 
than a block. The tender was hurled sev¬ 
eral hundred feet and wrecked, while en¬ 
gines in the roundhouse were smashed and 
twisted by the force of the explosion. Sol¬ 
diers have been ordered out to patrol the 
scene of the wreck and keep the crowds from 
dstroying anything which might be used 
in evidence. Confusion followed the ex¬ 
plosion and accurate estimates of the dead 
could not be made. It is probable that 
most of the dead never will be identified, 
as the bodies were mangled. Fragments 
of bodies were found for blocks around the 
railroad yards. 
For 10 days after her husband had been 
washed overboard and drowned in the 
midst of a storm that threatened the de¬ 
molition of the lighthouse Mrs. Peter Bor- 
que, on Board Rock Island, the Magdalene 
group, keet thp beacon going and probably 
saved several vessels from piling up on 
the rocks. Both she and her baby, which is 
likely to die, suffered frightfully from ex¬ 
posure and hunger. They were rescued by 
the Canadian Government steamship Seal 
and sent to Halifax, N. S. 
The White Plains fair grounds, where in 
years past many rich men who owned farms 
in Westchester County exhibited their 
horses and cattle, will be sold by auction 
on April 10 to satisfy a judgment for 
$20,000 held by Edward B. Long, one of 
the directors. Oliver Harriman was presi¬ 
dent of the Westchester County Agricul¬ 
tural Society, which had charge of the fairs 
for several years. The fair grounds were 
bought by the agricultural society in 1863 
and county fairs were held until 1875 
when on account of the fairs not paying 
expenses the fairs ceased and the grounds 
were sold under foreclosure of a mort¬ 
gage. In 1885 the society was reorgan¬ 
ized and the grounds were bought for $15,- 
000. The charter of the society expired in 
December last. 
Woman suffrage made a distinct and un¬ 
expected gain in the New York Assembly, 
March 19, when that body by a vote of 68 
to 63, refused to accept the adverse re¬ 
port on the equal suffrage resolution made 
by the Judiciary Committee and advanced 
the measure to the order of second read¬ 
ing. The Senate, which considered Senator 
Stilwoll’s resolution in the Committee of 
the Whole, killed it after a long debate by 
a vote of 24 to 17. 
According to an investigation by agents 
and officers of the American Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals there has 
been considerable “doping” of horses and 
other forms of commercial cruelty to ani¬ 
mals in this city. In order to do away 
with this abuse the society has caused to 
be presented a bill in the New York Legis¬ 
lature and every effort will be made to 
have it passed. The statement issued by 
the society says that the method used by 
the horse traders to sell crippled horses 
was to “dope” them, and for the time being 
the animals would appear like sound horses. 
The purchaser not only lost his< money, but 
he was also the only one whom the law 
could reach for having a lame or crippled 
horse in his possession. Since racing has 
been abolished in this State, the investiga¬ 
tors report, the practice has prevailed 
mostly among ex-jockeys and racetrack 
touts, and their victims have been poor 
people on the East Side. The investigators 
say they found one case where the horse 
dealer punctured the skin of the animal 
and with a pair of bellows forced enough 
air into the tissues to “fatten’ his horse 
for a sale. 
A DAY IN AN OHIO SUGAR CAMP. 
After the long cold Winter the first warm 
days are here. Over on a hillside, sloping 
toward the east, a thousand maple trees are 
waiting to yield their sap. First the 
buckets must be washed and scalded, like¬ 
wise everything else used about the camp. 
The wood is already corded dry in the shed, 
the coal in the bin. After hard work the 
buckets are all hung. The night continues 
warm and the snow melts rapidly, filling 
the creek, so it resembles a small river as 
it rushes past the sugar house. In the 
morning five o’clock finds us stirring, as 
cattle have to be fed ; 14 cows milked, be¬ 
fore starting for the woods, where full 
pails await the men. It requires three men 
to do the work. My husband goes into 
the sugar house and builds a huge fire un¬ 
der the 5x16 evaporator. By this time 
the men have gathered their first four- 
barrel tank of sap. This is strained as it 
is gathered again as it goes to the tank, 
and constantly skimmed as it passes down 
the pan until it reaches the syrup pans; 
60 barrels of storage is needed in this 
camp, and at that they often, during a 
good run, boil nearly all night for two or 
three nights at a time. 
When the cyclometer registers 33 the 
syrup tests 11% pounds per gallon, which 
is found with us to give best satisfaction. 
It is then drawn off into the settling can, 
and when cooled is canned. Up in north¬ 
eastern Ohio, 30 miles from Cleveland, 
connected by trolley, is Geauga County, 
famous all over the United States for its 
maple sugar and syrup. For the past five 
years the output has been as follows: 
Sugar 
Syrup 
pounds. 
gallons. 
1907. 
118,223 
1908. 
220,011 
1909. 
296,349 
1910. 
162,214 
1911. 
238,885 
A good bush of 1,000 trees will produce 
in a good season nearly 500 gallons of 
syrup; a poor season will give about 250 
to 300 gallons. A great deal depends on 
the season, as warm weather soon starts 
the buds and renders the sap unfit for mar¬ 
ket. Several years ago farmers sold chiefly 
to dealers, receiving from 50 to 60 cents 
per gallon. Now they have grown wiser 
and a great many sell direct to the con¬ 
sumer, thereby saving a nice sum for both, 
$1 being the usual price per gallon, boxed 
ready for shipping. Several years ago 
there were three large firms buying here; 
one local firm handles practically all the 
syrup now in this community. 
The other day the little lad came running 
in and said, “Mother, if I wash the dishes 
while you finish your work, will you go to 
the sugar camp with me?” I do not see 
how I can, but the little lad will be a boy 
but once, so together we go down the lane, 
across the creek to the sugar house. Of 
course we must go out for a tank of sap. 
With pail in hand he says, “See, mother, 
how quickly I can empty a pail of sap, and 
never spill a drop.” He is learning many 
a good lesson in the sugar camp. After he 
tires of the work we wander about the 
woods; the air so soft and still; over¬ 
head the sun shines brightly in the 
blue sky; soft fleecy clouds float about. 
All around the lure of the woods; crows 
calling, here and there a squirrel or a 
little brown rabbit scurries out of sight as 
they hear us rustling through the fallen 
leaves. The drip, drip of the sap falling 
in the empty pails is heard on every side; 
here and there a fern or bit of green vine 
with rod berries catches our fancy. I try 
to teach the little lad the grand beauty of 
the woods; how many years ago those 
stately maples were the tiny saplings we 
see to-day springing up around us; how 
carefully we should preserve them. Then 
as we go back down the hill to the camp 
I must stay to have some new syrup, warm 
from the pans, and some sugar boiled in a 
discarded bucket, stirred with a wooden 
paddle. Was sugar ever so good? Then, 
too, I must wait till he can boil some eggs, 
which he does by raking some coals down 
in front of the evaporator and places the 
pail of eggs on them. Do eggs ever taste 
so good any other way? He tells me it is 
because they are boiled in sweet sap. To 
me it seems they find half their flavor in 
the joyous, care-free appetite of the boy. 
Ah, what memories they bring of my own 
childhood days when the evaporator was 
an iron kettle and two pans, the syrup 
black, but just as sweet! J. c. 
Regarding prices obtained at auction sales 
in this vicinity, at one sale where a man 
was retiring from farming a pair of farm 
horses weighing 2800 pounds brought $600 ; 
nicely bred driving horse $125. At anothq^ 
sale, man selling his cows to go into raising 
potatoes, most grade Guernseys, some pure- 
breds, sold from $35 to $55, one cow fresh 
brought $75, registered two-year-old bull 
sold for $42. Hay brings $28 to $30 per 
ton; corn, 90 to 98 cents per bushel. Pigs 
sell for $4 at two months old; not many 
grown breeders for sale. Silage is not for 
sale here, nor manure; stalks .sell for 3% 
to four cents per sheaf. Bran sells at the 
- feed houses, $31 per ton; middlings and 
dried brewers’ grains the same. Lots of 
mules are being bought this Spring by 
farmers and coal and ice companies, mostly 
brought from the South. n. F. C. 
Lake Como, N. J. 
