Waterbury Democrat., 1901-02-15
STOLE HIS 1EA1ttScnlfT.

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 A scrap of paper, ragged, torn, part: Of a bundle addressed to Riplay Hi-- (the rest of the maine and address was missing) was taken to the house of the sender on Saturday last by an express man.
 II am very sorry, sir said the ex- pressman, apologetically, but l sup pose you read that robbers broke into the mail car of the owl train last week, somewhere between Powelton avenue and Trenton. They took good deal of stuff. sir. and one of the things they took was in this package ad- dressed to Riplay Hi, don't know the rest of his name But it had your name and address in the upper corner and so I return the wrapper. That's all that's left of it, sir, and we're very sorry, indeed"
 Three years of hard, sleep-renounc- ing labor was encompassed i'll that packet, and train robbers found it use less and threw it away, somewhere, anywhere between Philadelphia and Trenton.
 John T. Mcintyre of Kensington, born and reared to hard work, thought that life meant more than eating and sleeping. He read anything and ev- erything that he could put his hands onto. Then, one day, he wrote some thing. He was a clerk in grocery store then, but his mind was peopled with kings and queens and royal courts and the blare of trumpets
 He took this, his maiden effort, To a newspaper office. and his manuscript fell into good hands.
 Don't write of kings and queens. said this man. Write of the people around you. the common people-What they do. what they think. feel. suffer, Do this-and bring the story to me.
 John Mcintyre did so. He lost his position in the grocery store and went to wool warehouse. but his bralns was as busy as his hands. and ill three months he had finished q short story.
 It rang true. It told of the police man on the corner, of the ward poll tician, of the little girl who went for bread, the little boy who bought malk, the man who discoursed drunkenly or socialism and blabbered phrases whose meanings Were Greek to him.
 Capital" said his advisory friend. "The poor people is your field. Work a little harder, put little more polish to the work, and then I'll tell you something
 John Mcintyre worked on and soon q couple of his tales were published. He was a night watchman now, so he lost sleep in the daytime-and thought out stories.
 Three years ago his friend said to him: ''Now, get to work on q novel. Follow the same trend you have been following-the common people,.
 Two weeks ago John Mcintyre fin ished his novel. He called it ''The Ragged Edge," and 1t had G5,O0O words in it. The novel told of the poor peo- pie who lived in Johns neighborhood not the idlers, but the poor working people. There were accounts of the great ball given by, the so-and-so so- ciable, of a party given by Maggie Finn, of a christening that was quite the most wonderful christening ever held. The man who kept the grocery store. the woman who sold notions, the policeman, the politician. the newsboy who supported his mother and the lit tie sister-all these folk had q place in "The Ragged Edge"
 Its q mighty good york; said his friend provingly-"mighty good work I'll send it to the publisher for you-'
 So this friend sent the manuscript and put his name and address in the upper left hand corner
 On Saturday last all that was left of sThe Ragged Edge' was taken by an eNpressman to a Spruce street house.
 A scrap of paper. ragged, torn, part of bundle addressed to 'Riplay Hf-' (the rest of the name and address was missing) was all the mail car robbers had left of the novel John Mcintyre had spent three years in writing.