Part 3 — CHAPTER X

A. Criticize the following stories from the standpoint of accuracy of presentation. Rewrite the second. (Paragraphs 122–126.)

FUTURE WIVES WARNED

Not since the days of the cave men has masculine assurance dared issue such an ultimatum to femininity as that just sent by an organization of students of Tulane University known as "Our Future Wives" club. The club has as its purpose the dictation of the dress selection of every woman. It is an organization of young men who have developed the stern purpose of correcting female faults and of widening the scope of choice that they may have in the choosing of wives who will be sensible.

The fifteen students who are members have pledged themselves to taboo socially every young woman who does not literally adhere to the list of regulations which the organization has prescribed as dress limitations. Young women who refuse to be guided by the ukase of the club will find that none of its members will ever extend any invitations to them; they will discover, it is promised, that they have been sadly and most completely "cut."

At its initial meeting the club drew up and adopted a "proclamation." This document was mailed in copy to every young woman student of Newcomb College. The young women recipients read the following:

"1. We will look upon no young woman with favor who spends more than $15 a year for hats. Only one hat should be worn throughout the year. We think it possible that hats may be trimmed over and worn for several years.

"2. No cosmetics should be used. Powder might be used in the case of a sallow girl.

"3. Perfumes are absolutely under the ban as a needless and disagreeable expense.

"4. Additional hair should not be bought. It is an extravagance and is contrary to the purpose of nature.

"5. Not more than $40 a year should be expended for dresses and suits.

"6. Jewelry, with the exception of a wedding ring, is no adornment, to our way of thinking. Off with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and the like.

"7. Silk stockings are the one extravagance allowed. Scientists say that silk stockings prevent the wearer from being struck by lightning.

"8. Five dollars a year is the amount necessary for shoes.

"9. Laces of all descriptions making for an appearance of frivolity should not be used in dress.

"10. All other necessaries of dress should not cost more than $25 a year."

EIGHT COIN-BOX ROBBERS CAUGHT

In the arrest last night of five men and three women as they were wrapping piles of five-cent pieces into one-dollar rolls in an elaborately furnished apartment near Audubon Avenue and 172d Street, the police have found the thieves who have been concerned in all the telephone slot-box robberies during the past three years and have robbed the New York Telephone Company of thousands of dollars.

The men and women under arrest have used a powerful automobile in going about the city, robbing the slot boxes with skeleton keys and files. The men arrested gave the following names and ages:—Tom Morrison, 21; Nic Marino, 26; Adam Neeley, 25; William O. Cohen, 30; and Charles Guise, 25. The women were Della Thomas, 25; Dorothy Price, 25; and Dollie Lewis, 25.

For more than two years the New York Telephone Company has endeavored unsuccessfully to trap these thieves in their robberies of the pay stations. Buzzers were affixed so that an attempt to open them would sound a warning, but, despite that, the thefts continued. Acting Captain Jones, of the Third Branch, and Acting Captain Cooper, of the Fourth Branch Detective Bureaus, who directed the arrests, declare that the women did the telephoning and opened the coin boxes, and that one of the men, coming to the booth from the telephone as if to call, reached in a hand or a small bag and took the coins.

BREEZE AND RAIN PRODUCER DISCOVERED

Prof. Marblenut, Dopetown's imminent (correct) scientist, has arranged to furnish this city with a perpetual cool breeze and two showers a week, all next summer. The breeze is to be made by a gigantic electric fan operated by current generated in a plant on the banks of Little Muddy, at Pigankle Falls. This monster fan will be made of steel. The showers will be made by an apparatus built on the same principle as a Chinese laundryman's face when he takes a mouthful of water and sprays the wash. The water will come from the river and will be filtered, then sprayed over the city from the face of a colossal Chinese figure standing on the left bank of the river above the power house. Prof. Marblenut is the same man who attempted suicide with a bakery doughnut when his wife left him last year. A friend took the deadly thing from him and saved his life.

BOB LA FOLLETTE STILL INCONSISTENT

Senator Robert M. La Follette faced an audience of about 300 men in the armory on Tuesday night. He arrived rather late as if to so sharpen the appetite of curiosity that his unsavory oratorical courses might be bolted without inspection and denunciation of the chef. The Senator was conducted to the stage and introduced by Assemblyman Ballard. His arrival was greeted with only an inkling of applause from one corner of the gallery occupied by a few college students. Near the stage rested Peter Tubbs and Senator Culbertson, sphinx-like in the desert of progressivism meditating on the grandeur of past political glory abused and lost. To the men an occasional political riddle was proposed by the speaker for solution.

The Senator's speech lasted nearly three hours, two of which were devoted to ancient history, and one to sharp criticisms of the Philipp administration. From the beginning of things in Wisconsin, the Senator traced the growth of democratic institutions on the one hand and that of corporations on the other. The alleged incessant struggle for mastery between them was described with stage sincerity. It appeared, from his account, that the people were losing ground up to the time of his birth a half century or more back. And there was a dearth of honest men and patriotic statesmen in the state until the Senator was old enough to hold public office....

CLAUDE OLDS DIES FROM COASTING INJURIES

Claude Olds, 12-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. George Olds, Wilson Street, died at 3:45 o'clock yesterday afternoon at St. Elizabeth Hospital as a result of injuries sustained in a coasting accident, related briefly in these columns yesterday. The lad sustained a broken neck and internal injuries.

Dr. Alvin Scott of the Bowman park commission, who was instrumental in providing safe toboggan slides for the children in the city park, has decided since yesterday's fatal accident to ask the city commission for an appropriation sufficient to establish a number more of toboggan slides for the accommodation of children in various parts of the city. He is proceeding on the very safe assumption that if there had been a toboggan slide in the Third Ward the fatality of yesterday would not have happened, for there would then have been no occasion for children coasting on the hill where the accident occurred.

The unfortunate lad, with his brother, Ernest Olds, and Chester Graves and Bessie Lamb, were on a delivery sled owned by the Barnes and Scholtz Grocery Company, sliding down a hill that extends into the ravine just north of Second Street and east of Mason. When about halfway down the bob capsized and the little Olds boy was buried under it. Coasting on hills not especially prepared for it is dangerous to life and limb. The authorities should put a stop to it in Bowman, but at the same time the city should make safe provision for such sport by erecting toboggan slides similar to the ones in the city park.

MRS. DOWS SEEKING ADVENTURE

Mrs. Andrews Dows, whose photograph is reproduced above, says she believes she is the most adventuresome of New York's society women, but is tired of the humdrum existence of Mother Earth in general and New York in particular. She says she thinks she has run the entire gamut of worldly thrills, but is still on the lookout for something new. Mrs. Dows declares she has ridden the most fiery of steeds and taken them over the most dangerous jumps. She has driven auto racing cars at blinding speed. Once she captured a burglar single-handed. She has piloted all manner of water speed craft. Now she declares she is tired of flitting through the clouds in an aeroplane and is impatiently waiting to hear of some sort of dangerous adventure that she has not already experienced.

B. What criticism may be made of the following?

An even one hundred reservations have been made for the New Year's Eve dinner to be served at 11 o'clock in the Venetian room at the Carman House, and thirty have been made for service in the café. No more can be accommodated in the Venetian room, but the management will be able to take care of a few more in the café and French room. Those who have reserved places are planning to make this the biggest New Year's jollification ever held in Avondale. The management of the Carman also says that patrons will be given the very best of service.

C. Examine the following story for its excellence in keeping the time relation entirely clear. Show how the writer obtains this clearness and how he avoids the possibility of libel. (Paragraphs 124–131.)

DEATH NOTE BEARS AUTHOR'S TRAGEDY IN LOVE

Four years ago the love story of Myrtle Reed, the author, who had immortalized her husband, James Sydney McCullough, in prose and verse, came to a tragic end when she committed suicide in "Paradise Flat," her Kenmore Avenue apartment. During the five years of her married life her "model husband," as she called McCullough, was believed to have furnished the inspiration for "Lavender and Old Lace," "The Master's Violin," and other love stories from her pen.

Mystery shrouded her death and an effort was made to hush up the suggestion that she was convinced that her husband no longer loved her. A note addressed to her aged mother was never made public.

Yesterday in Circuit Judge Windes's court her father, Hiram V. Reed, sought to have McCullough deposed as trustee of her estate of about $91,000. Negligence and misapplication of funds were charged. Mr. Reed's attorney planned to show that Mrs. McCullough expected to change her will before she committed suicide.

What purported to be the mysterious note was offered in evidence. It was typewritten and only two words of script appeared in it. Judge Windes ruled that it was not sufficiently identified and rejected it as evidence. The offered note reads in part:

"Dearest Mother: After five years of torment I have set myself free. I suppose you'll think it's cowardly, but I cannot help it. I cannot bear it any longer. Last night was the twelfth anniversary of our meeting. He was to come home early and bring me some flowers, and instead of that he came home at half past one so drunk he couldn't stand up.

"Last year my birthday and the anniversary of our engagement were the same way. This morning he went out of town without even waking me up to say goodby to me or telling me where he was going or when he would be back. All I asked of him was that he should come home sober at half past six as other men do, but he refuses to give me even this. I am crushed, overwhelmed, drowned.

"I enclose two bank savings books. This is for you and father and for nobody else under any circumstances whatever, aside from the provision I have made for you in my will. I've tried my best, mother. I've tried to bear it bravely and to rise above it and not to worry, but I cannot. I loved my husband so until he made me despise him. I should have done this five years ago, only you and father needed me.

"You've been the dearest father and mother that anybody ever had and my being dead won't make any difference in my loving you. My will is in Mr. Fowler's vault. Oh, mother, I've loved so much, I've tried so hard, I've worked so hard, and I've failed, failed, failed, failed. Forgive me, please. With love always,

"Myrtle."

McCullough was out of the city at the time of his wife's death. Upon his return he said that she had probably taken her life while mentally unbalanced.

"Have you any comment to make on the letter written by your wife to her mother?" he was asked yesterday.

"Oh, I could tell you a long story if I wanted to," said he, carelessly. "There's nothing to it at all. I could show you worse letters than that. I doubt if she ever wrote it anyway. There is no proof. To understand this matter you must know that my wife's father and her brother have been fighting to get control over her estate. They didn't get enough to satisfy them under the will."

Although Judge Windes refused to depose McCullough as administrator, he ordered him to make a definite report, setting forth the condition of the property, with a list of all disbursements. Further, he directed that McCullough should report from time to time as the court might direct and ordered him to give a permanent bond of $50,000. The court said that the trustee's conduct had been improper.[52]

D. Indicate and correct the faults in the following stories (paragraphs 131–134):

1. While Mrs. Stanley Barnes was making fruit salad at the Baptist parsonage Thursday she lost her wedding ring in it. Clark Webster was sick Friday morning, and for a time it was thought that he had eaten it in the salad, but a calmness was restored in these parts when it was learned that she had failed to put it on when leaving home in the morning.

2. Hereafter it shall be written by way of simile: "As fair as a Hinsdale blonde." Rainwater is the answer. Rainwater! Rainwater, such as used to seep off the kitchen roof into the eave trough and into the barrel at the corner.

But the Hinsdale water barrel, that has just been completed and now is in operation, is no mere castoff sauerkraut hogshead. It cost $30,000, and it gives forth rainwater at a rate of a million gallons a day. And the dingiest brunette will soon blossom out in the full glory of the spun-gold blonde. The chemist person who installed the $30,000 rain barrel says so, and he claims to know.

It was cited to the women of Hinsdale that the women of the British Isles are fair, very fair, indeed. What makes them so fair? The fog. And what is fog? It is rainwater in the vapor. Hence rainwater will make women fair. Let us, therefore, have rainwater.

The water in Hinsdale heretofore has been hard. It crinkled the hair and put the complexion on the bum. It cost more money for cosmetics to set these complexions right than a couple of $30,000 rain barrels. But now the seediest lady in the land has only to make a pilgrimage to Hinsdale and return ready to make faces at the inventor of peroxide.

3. Last week Tuesday night the henhouse of Mr. Rosenblot, on the Standard farm, was broken open and 14 hens taken. Also at the same time five bags of grain and two bags of cattle salt were stolen. Thursday night his chicken coops were visited and about 40 little chicks taken. Mr. Rosenblot expects his wife and her mother from Russia next week.

4. The feature of the evening was the dance. Miss Semple's grace and ease in executing the many intricate steps of the Argentine tango, hesitation waltz, and other modern dances elicited great applause from the onlookers. Miss Sheppard of the District Nurses' Association gave a lecture on first aid to the injured.

5. "Lemme see something nifty in shirts—something with a classy green stripe," said Dan McKee of Soho Street, as he cruised into the men's furnishing store of Emil de Santis, in Webster Avenue. The lone clerk evidently did not notice all the specifications of McKee's order, and listlessly drew out at random the first box of shirts his hand touched. Picking the top shirt out, he laid it before McKee.

"There's something nice," he began.

"Oh, is it?" yelled McKee.

"McKee," said Magistrate Sweeney at the hearing, "what on earth made you try to wreck that store?"

"I asked for a green striped shirt, judge."

"Well?"

"And that fellow handed me a bright orange one."

"I see," said Sweeney. "But I'll have to make it thirty days."

E. The following stories, along with other faults, are lacking in tone. Correct them in any way necessary. (Paragraphs 136–137.)

1. The wedding bells peeled joyfully at the home of Mr. H. R. Drake last Tuesday, when their highly accomplished and beautiful daughter, Melva, became the blushing bride of that sterling young farmer, Henry Eastman. The bride's brother, Charlie, played Mendelssohn's wedding march on his cornet, and considering the fact he has only had it about 9 months it sounded good. Rev. Osgood, who has been working through harvest and picking up a little on the side, performed the nuptials. The bride's costume was a sort of light gauzy affair and white slippers and stockings to match. Of course she wore heavier clothes when they went on their wedding trip. Quite a merry crowd assembled to see them off, and as they didn't have any rice some of them got to throwing roasting ears. Henry was struck under the eye by a large ear and blacked it pretty bad. They drove right to Larned and stayed all night at the hotel, and then took their wedding trip to Kinsley and Dodge City. They have rented the old home place and will be at home next Tuesday. Melva expects to take charge of Cooper & Jones' cook shack the rest of the season.

2. The old must die, the young sometimes do. When a young child, sweet and gentle in temperament, lovable and full of promise, is cut down in the very hey time of youth, it is unutterably sad. There is said to be a time for all things and this would seem to be a time for mourning.

Sunday morning at 4:30 o'clock the Death Angel summoned John O. Beck, Jr., and bade him leave his playthings and many friends and come away. It must have been with a sigh of relief that his spirit took flight from the frail body which had been tortured for twenty-two long days with the torture of spinal meningitis.

John O. Beck, Jr., youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. John O. Beck, was born on the twenty-fifth day of July, 1903, in Boswell. He was the youngest of four children—William, Leona, and La Baron survive him. His was a most beautiful nature, he loved company, and the childish circles in which he moved were always brighter and happier for his presence. As a member of the Christian Sunday School he was always in his place. The little boy will be missed, not only in the home, but among his playmates and also amongst the older people of the city.

The funeral will be held to-morrow afternoon at 3 o'clock from the family home. Dr. Frank Talmage, pastor of the Christian Church, will officiate. Interment will be made in South Park.

3. After the ceremony the guests repaired to the dining-room, where a wedding dinner was served, replete with the most luscious viands conceivable by the human imagination. The turkey, which had been roasted under the personal supervision of the bride, possessed delectability of flavor impossible of description. It was the unanimous verdict of the numerous assemblage of appreciative guests that never before in the annals of human history had a turkey more delicious, more savory, more ambrosial, been the object of human consumption. Both the business office and the editorial rooms of the Standard were largely and brilliantly represented, and the collation was interspersed with highly intelligent affabilities. Constant streams of sparkling repartee rippled across the table, jocund anecdotes and refined civilities of every variety abounded, the festivities in every way being characterized by vivacity, suavity, chivalry, and irreproachable respectability.

4. R. S. George had a narrow escape from sudden death yesterday morning. George was working on top of an electric pole on Water St. and Ninth Ave. He was strapped to the pole. He was removing the bolts that held the cross-bars. The pole was rotten and George's weight at the top caused it to break. In falling the pole hit the supply wagon that was standing below, breaking the fall. Other men working on the job rushed to his aid. Dr. Mitchell was called. George was taken to the Sacred Heart Hospital. Mr. George was badly shaken up but not seriously injured. He is employed by the Wisconsin-Minnesota Light & Power Co.

5. Bud Lanham, the Corner's miser, who has buried his money for the last six years near the big ash tree back of Cary's gin, lost half of it last week. The guilty person has not been apprehended. Tim Snyder went to Jonesville yesterday and bought himself a fine suit of clothes and a Ford.

6. Mrs. A. I. Epstein, the soprano soloist from St. Louis, will sing a symphony known as the "Surprise Symphony" at the concert by the University Orchestra in the auditorium to-morrow night. The piece was written by Haydn. The symphony was so named by the composer on account of the startling effects produced. The solo part is very unusual, the long pauses and unusual loud chords make it unlike other music. It has a pleasing effect on the audience, probably due to its individuality. Mrs. Epstein has the reputation of being able to sing this kind of a solo. The foremost critics of the largest musical world pronounce Mrs. Epstein as an ideal in oratorical singing.

7. Some jealous rascal threw a stone at a buggy in which a certain young man of Florala and a young lady of Lockhart were riding last Saturday night. The stone struck the young lady squarely in the back, and at the same time bruised the left arm of the young man very badly.

8. Mrs. O. N. Daw is confined to her bed on account of the recent injury she sustained when she fell from a chair to the floor. Mrs. Daw was attempting to swat a fly at hand and stood upon the chair to reach the intended victim. He was further away than at first anticipated and in an endeavor to reach him she fell as a result of becoming overbalanced. We trust her injury will soon give her no further trouble and will soon become well. She certainly is to be commended for her efforts to swat the fly, for if more of us did this we would find less disease in the world and conditions more healthful in general. Besides the flies are a bothersome pest anyway.

9. One of the most superb affairs that the citizens of Lexington have witnessed for quite a long while, was brought to bear by the uniting in holy wedlock of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Stewart and Mr. Louis Monroe Ford. At the beginning, the day was one of gloom, but late in the morning the clouds became scattered, and at the noon hour the sun peeped out and streamed through the windows of the old historic church, adding cheer and enthusiasm to the superb occasion. Each individual of the bridal party performed his or her part as perfectly as if guided by a guardian angel, and the entire performance was one of rare beauty, portraying all of the accuracy of a piece of well-oiled machinery.

F. The following stories are good and bad. Rewrite any that need correction. Show why the others are good.

ACCIDENT NARROWLY AVERTED

Last Thursdsay evening the people of the beautiful little village of Hartford were astounded when they heard the moan and groan of one of their neighbors, Dr. William Waters, who had the misfortune of being capsized beneath a small building in the mad waters of Pigeon River.

While Dr. Waters was out for an evening walk enjoying the cool breezes on the banks of this beautiful stream he had occasion to enter a small building which had been erected years ago. Owing to his enormous heavy weight, and without a moment's warning, the building toppled over in the river, leaving the doctor in quite an embarrassing position. The moans and groans from beneath the little building could be heard from most every home in Hartford. Had it not been for the never-tiring efforts of Lewis Johnson and Andy Valentine in moving the building off the Doctor, rescuing him from the grasp of death, which had clutched him beneath the building in the mad waters of the river, crepe would now be dangling from the door-knob of a Doctor's office in Hartford.

TIGHT SHOES BALK PAY-DAY LARK

Mrs. Mary Bogden, 50 West 119th Street, is nearly five feet tall and weighs 200 pounds. Yesterday she refused to go out with her husband, Joe, to celebrate his pay day, because her shoes were too tight. Joe went out alone. When he came home he found his wife had been arrested for drinking too much. To-day her hat is too tight.

KILLS GIRL WHO SPURNED HIM

Miss Evelyn Helm got her position as cloak model because of the trimness of her waist, because of her lithe young figure, and because of her loveliness and vivacity. When she wore a gown for a buyer, he generally said, "Some skirt!" Therefore she received a fair salary and was independent. The same qualities that earned her money, however, attracted the attentions of a man she did not like—and invoked a tragedy.

The man was gray-haired and big and fat and unromantic, but he loved the cloak model desperately. He told her so every time he saw her, but she laughed at him. She knew him as Lem Willhide "of Kentucky," and she tried to avoid him. He followed her one day to her room in the home of Mrs. Louise Wendt, 1319 Eddy Street, and invited himself to call. He wanted to marry her, to take her home to the "blue grass" country with him, but she could not be annoyed.

"I ought to be calling you 'daddy,'" she said. "Why, you're more than twice as old as I. You've admitted you are 52. Go get a nurse and let me alone."

He seemed to like her spirit. She could not break his determination, he told her. He might be old, but this was his first love affair. Again and again she put him off. Always he followed her, spied on her, called her by phone. She could not escape him, but he couldn't persuade her to wed him.

Yesterday morning as usual he sent his love message over the telephone wires—and the girl hung up the receiver and she sneered in an explanation to the landlady. Later she was dressing to go out, when the back door of the rooming-house opened and the man from Kentucky bulged in the doorway.

"You've got your nerve coming into a lady's house without asking," said the girl.

"I've come to get you," said the man.

"Then you better go back again," and the girl turned away.

The man from Kentucky drew a revolver and shot her in the neck. She looked up at him from the floor, and he fired four more bullets into her body.

"If we can't be wed in life, we'll marry in death," the landlady heard him say, and he shot himself in the head.

Miss Helm died as the police were carrying her into the Chicago Union Hospital, and the man from Kentucky died later in the Alexian Brothers' Hospital. Before he went he told Detective William Rohan that he was a tobacco salesman and a professional card player.

"I drew for a queen to fill a bobtail flush," he said, with a queer smile, "but I didn't better my hand."

CHAUFFEUR'S FEET BURNED OFF

Herbert T. Middleton lives on Anderson Avenue, at Palisade, N. J. While driving his automobile along the avenue he saw an overturned car burst into flame at the roadside, about half a mile south of Fort Lee. Two men and a boy were struggling to lift the rear end of the car, and shouting for help. Middleton hurried to their aid and found that the legs of the chauffeur were pinned to the ground by the back of the rear seat and flaming gasoline running over his limbs was burning him like a torch.

The chauffeur, Amendo Alberti, 32 years old, raised himself to a sitting posture and tried to direct the efforts of his rescuers. With the aid of another autoist and several drivers of passing wagons, they finally got Alberti free. The burning gasoline had spread upward to his body. It was smothered by rolling the man in lap robes from the cars.

Dr. Max Wyley of Englewood Hospital, who came with an ambulance, found that the chauffeur's feet had been almost burned off, and the burning fluid had seared his limbs and body as far as his chest. At the hospital Doctor Proctor assisted Doctor Wyley in an effort to keep him alive. They decided he had one chance in five of living. If he survives he will be a cripple.

BLAMES ALL ON WOMAN HE KILLED

"The woman Thou gavest me tempted me and I did eat."—Adam, thousands of centuries ago.

Shortly after the world began, Adam sinned—and blamed a woman. What Adam did in fear of God, a twentieth-century Adam did yesterday in Chicago—blamed a woman.

Here is the story:

Attachés of a saloon and café at 714 North Clark Street were startled early yesterday afternoon by revolver shots just outside the door. Rushing into an alley at the rear, they found the bodies of a man and a woman.

The man was Washington Irving Morley, son of a wealthy contractor of Kansas City. The woman was Mrs. May Whitney, 29 years old, cabaret singer and mother of a 3-year-old child.

As they picked the bodies up, a letter dropped from the man's coat. It told everything that need be told about the dead man, the dead woman, and the dead man's deed.

It was addressed "To Anybody," and read:

This is an awful deed, but this woman is and has been ten thousand times worse than the vampire of fiction, and may God have mercy on her soul and mine. Yes, I guess I am crazy and have been for a year, but she has driven me to it. I left her in K. C., but she followed me to Chicago and then to Green Bay and all over.

But it is too late to cry about our mistakes.

I have had my chances, but I have thrown them all away. Oh, if I had only taken the advice years ago of that grandest of all men, my father. But I let the three W's get me—wine, women, and w—. But, young men, remember, do not get infatuated with a woman of doubtful character. They never can lead to anything good.

I have had my fling, but now I am going to the great beyond and I'm going to take the creature with me that has caused me more bad luck, heartaches, and everything else. I cannot live with her and I cannot live without her.

Good-by all.

W. S. Morley.

P. S.—My belongings are all in her trunk, which is at Spangenberg's. I think her mother's address is 123 Pinckney Street, Somerville, Mass., Mrs. D. T. Whitney.

The bodies were taken to Gavin & Son's undertaking rooms. There a second letter was found in the man's pocket. It was addressed to his father, P. J. Morley, in Kansas City, and read as follows:

You no doubt will be horrified, but I couldn't help it. I have been crazy for a year, and this woman has driven me to it. You have been the grandest father in the world to me, and if only I had taken your advice, what a change it would have made in my life! But it is too late. Good-by, and may God have mercy on my soul. Yours,

Irving.

P. S.—Father, if you want to do anything, take care of that boy in Hamburg, Iowa. He will be some boy if he doesn't inherit too many of his parents' bad faults.

Until recently Morley was a partner in the expressing firm of Ryan & Morley, Fifth Avenue and Randolph Street.

SLAIN IN FIGHT ON BRIDGE

Frank Wright, storekeeper for the bridge contractors, was killed by a fellow workman with an iron bar. The killing was witnessed by Wright's wife, who was making her way up to him with his lunch. Police have arrested Jack Browning in connection with the crime. The killing was preceded by a grim struggle in which the two men wrestled back and forth on the arch and both nearly fell into the river several times. After Wright had been slain his assailant jumped from platform to platform until he reached the ground and then fled.

AGED MAN GAINS HEARTS DESIRE

Joseph Stang has gained his heart's desire. He is dead.

For Joseph Stang death drew aside its mask of horror and revealed itself the fair prize and ultimate reward of mankind, impartially awaiting the winners and losers in life. And the aged man pursued it for a year with patient resolution, undiverted by the inconsequential parade of the world's affairs.

During the last year Mr. Stang, who was 81 years old, and a retired real-estate man, living with an invalid wife at 4855 North Paulina Street, made three ineffectual attempts to commit suicide. His first effort was discovered before he had succeeded in injuring himself. On Oct. 30 he sent a bullet into his brain in his bedroom. Persons in the household ran to him and found him lying on the floor, the revolver beside him. He was placed on the bed, and during the excitement of telephoning for an ambulance and a physician, the members of the household left him alone, believing him unconscious, if not dead. He got out of bed and crawled to his revolver, which had been picked up and placed on the bureau. Then he fired another shot over his heart.

He was taken to the hospital, where his wounds, although both in vital parts, healed rapidly, and he was soon discharged. Because of his infirmities and the illness of his wife he was later taken to the German-American Hospital to be cared for.

Saturday morning he told his nurse that he was tired of life. She cajoled him into a better humor, however, and he ate three hearty meals during the day. Shortly after supper he was left alone in his room. He went to his window, which overlooks a cemented court twenty feet below, and dived out, striking on his head. He was dead within a few minutes.

Physicians at the hospital declare that Mr. Stang must have calculated his jump carefully, as a falling body would not strike head first unless by design.

DARK STREETS MAKE THREE ESCAPES POSSIBLE

Policemen on posts in the Bronx have frequently complained to their superior officers because the turning off of street lights before daylight often gives burglars and other criminals an hour or more of heavy darkness in which to carry on their operations unmolested. The most emphatic of such complaints was made yesterday morning, after three burglars had escaped from pursuit at 4:30 a.m.

According to the policemen who attempted to capture the men, all of the lights in the Bronx were out at the time and heavy clouds made the streets black as midnight in a country village. The policemen attributed the escape of the burglars entirely to the darkness. Not only did the men escape, but they fired revolvers at the policemen and narrowly missed one of them, who heard the bullet as it passed his head.

Sergeant Hale and Policeman Regen of the Morrisania Station were standing in Westchester Avenue near Union Avenue shortly before 4:30 o'clock, when they heard the crashing of a pane of glass. They ran to Union Avenue in time to see the dim shadows of three men running from the corner. The two policemen shouted to the men to stop and fired their revolvers, but the fugitives, returning the fire over their shoulders, darted down Union Avenue, separated, and disappeared into apartment house doors.

Policemen Rooney and O'Connell, who were several blocks away, heard the shots and ran to the scene. The alarm was sent to the precinct station, and while the four policemen were following the burglars into the apartment houses, the reserves were hurrying to their assistance.

Hale and Regen surprised one of the men on a roof and opened fire on him, but, as far as they could tell in the inky darkness, he was not hit. As he fled to the roof of an adjoining house he fired at the policemen, and Hale could tell from its sound that the bullet passed within a few inches of his head. The man disappeared into the darkness, and the policemen were unable to find him again.

Other policemen followed the other two burglars, the reserves surrounded the block, and many of those living in the neighborhood who were aroused from sleep by the revolver shots, joined in the hunt; but the trail of none of the fugitives was picked up. It was so dark, the searchers said, that they were not able to see more than a few feet ahead of them at any time. All agreed that the burglars probably hid almost under the noses of those who were looking for them, for every roof, alley and possible hiding place in the block was searched as carefully as was practicable under the conditions.

The men had thrown a brick through the window in the jewelry store of M. Baldwin, at Westchester and Union Avenues. They snatched about $100 worth of novelty objects from the window, but dropped all of them in their flight. The property was later picked up from the street.

Many complaints have come to the New York Crescent from all over the city because there is often an hour or more of darkness between the time of turning out street lights and daylight. The lighting companies, it is said, are within the law of their contracts with the city.