The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-13
ALICE MACEDONIAN $
 COURT EXPERIENCE
Is CIeverIy Woven in An ApQa-
 tie to the Children
A FLING AT JUDGE FIFE
Interesting Coincidence in Selecting Titles For Stories--Miss Mac Gowan Forced to Make
 Change.

Chattanooga Tenn, May 12.-(Special) People who read the newspaper accounts of how Miss Alice MacGowan was haled before the circuit court of Catoosa county Georgia year ago and tried before Judge Fite on a criminal charge are comparing all that with the court room scene in her story, "An Apostle to the Children" which is just published in the Saturday Evening Post.
 A careful comparison of the narrowing poor old Overhold is described as nav ing received at the hands of the officials of "Talulah county" in the tale' and the persecution that was actually meted out to Miss MacGowan and her sister, Mrs. Grace MacGowan Cooke, leaves one to the conclusion that the writers have made clever use of their experiences coining their discomfort of those weeks in shining dollars in this very realistic fiction which helps forward a story or child labor in the cotton mills.
 Even the artist who illustrated the story seems to have fallen in with their ideas and the portrait he makes of the Judge Doak of the tale might well serve for n picture of the distinguished Geor- gian of Catoosa county with the addl- ton of a mustache.
 Asks for Acquisition.
 If will be remembered that Judge F1te asked the governor of Georgia for requl- stlon papers that an err1ng (O Iehnes- see editor might be brought before him and tried for Hes majesty or some sim liar offense, for speaking lightly of just ice as administered In Georgia. The said editor. by the way, can't play golf in oa1 nr tba officers at Fort Oglethorpe, which is favorite diversion of socially inclined Chattanoo- gans, for fear the ever zealous officers Of the Cracker State will hale him before the judge.
 Miss MacGowan's offense in the eyes of the officials of the county was the simple one of closing a path which meandered across her property. The path in ques- tion was not a road had never been a public road and she was entirely within her rights as was subsequently, proved, but nevertheless she was subjected to end less annoyances and much expense over the matter.
 The distinguished writer purchased about two years ago handsome country place near Chickamauga, known as the Greens Farm. It was an important point in the battle of Chickamauga and aside from it's beauty of location and scenery had this romantic interest of civil war history Miss MacGowan had plans drawn for hundred thousand dollar colonial residence, renewed the broken down fences the farm had been aban- doned for several years), enriched the fields and was rapidly restoring the place to a productive plantation. A path had been made through broken fences across a corner of what had always been con sidered the residence site. The path ran only a few feet in reality from an open road in good condition. Miss MacGowan restored her fences al these broken points, but put up gates for such people as still should insist upon the short cut.
 Was Forced to Appear.
 It was for this that she was forced to appear in the Georgia courts for months, while all sorts of astounding propositions were made to her. Eventually she was cleared but in the meanwhile she had ordered all work on the house plans abandoned and subsequently she offered the property for sale.
 The latest turn in affairs is vastly anus ing for it is unusual that an author has the opportunity to come in such close contact with the very people who make LID the characters of his or her best nov els. Miss MacGowan has been writing Tor years about the country people and noun tain people of Georgia and some or the best work that has issued from her facile pen concerns these people
 It is also interesting to know that The Apostle to the Children as originally christened. bore the unusual title, "The Children of the Barren" By coinci- dence this was chosen by another promt- nent writer for a story which appeared In the Century just as Miss MacGowan g novel as ready for the press. The change of course was necessary and made imme- ,1i al