The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-08-05

cloth, for the necessary testimonials as
to the credibility of'the witnesses.
The preacher, who in some respects
was the most dangerous member of the
gang, was arrested and locked up, but
broke jail and disappeared and has on
~ recently been recaptured in another
state. OF the log cases 102 have been
thrown out for fraud. The other four
have slipped into the roll by one means
or another, and although the whole
patch We're tainted with suspicion it
may be necessary to leave these few
Where they are for lack of the affirma-
i've evidence to upset thin.
The rule which makes seven years
absence a presumptive proof of a SOL
dier's death has sometimes come into
the WIDOWS pension cases in a peculiar
way. A man committed murder and
disappeared. After seven years his
widow, finding no trace Of him any,
where. asked the pension office to treat
TINS as case of presumptive death
The office had to make a ruling that
a man who was fugitive from Justice
would necessarily disappear from view
and hence that in this case the reason
ing from long absence would be inap-
plicable
The cases of dependent mothers fur
n1sh some troublesome questions for
the pension office to deal with. A
woman who had been for years draw
ing pension as the dependent mother
of soldier was reported by one Of the
field agents of the pension office as hav-
ing remarked. When taxed with the
fact the woman defied the office to
prove the remarriage. The Office could
find no documentary or other evidence
beyond the fact that she was known
everywhere by the name of the man
with whom she was living, and treated
by her neighbors and the tradesmen
with whom they dealt as his wife. The
office then proposed to strike her name
from the rolls under the act of 1882,
on the ground that she was living in
unlawful relations. 1t was evident,
however, that she had been coached"
by some shrewd attorney for her case
was promptly shown to be outside of
the operation of that law, since the law
referred not to mothers, but widows.
The only way the pension office could
get rid of the woman, therefore, was to
fall back upon the various circumstan-
tial proofs of the existence of COM
mon law marriage.
The amount of fraud which has been
tried upon the pension office, especially
in connection with the death of negroes
in the South-where. owing to their
social condition, little knowledge is pos
sessed by their neighbors of their do
nestle affairs-has given backmailers
a fine field for plying their trade. Not
very long ago an honest old colored
widow, whose proofs were as satisfac-
tory as those of any pensioner, but who
was ignorant anu easily frightened,
was visited by a scoundrel of her own
race, WHO told her that the pension Of
flee was on the lookout for evidence
against her, and that he would furnish
such evidence as would cause her name
to be stricken from the roll unless she
would pay him $25. The poor woman
could raise only S. in cash, but at the
time one of the special agents hap
pened to come her way she had con-
tracted to sell her COW and was looking
for purchasers of her chickens and
geese-stripping herself of every pen
ny's worth of property she possessed
in order to ward off an injustice which
she dreaded, but knew no other way of
escaping. Fortunately, before the
wreck of her fortune was complete, she
was set right