Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-12-20
NEWS ITEMS.

sso h<s't1s
Tests on battleships show that the
wonderful wireless telephone can be
operated fifteen miles.
Many of the larger dailies are rails
ing the price from one cent to two cents
a copy, owing to the high price of raw
paper.
About 60 men met death from an ex-
plosion in the mine of the Yolande Coal
and Coke Company, So miles from Biz
mingham, Ala, early Monday morning.
In tow of the tug Imperial, the
steamer Westmoreland reached Balti-
more Saturday from Leedstown, having
broken her rudder in the Rappahannock
river.
Mrs. Claude A. Swanson, wife of
the Governor of Virginia, is an artist OF
considerable merit. Landscape and
china painting are her specialties. =
Carolina Echo.
A charter for an electric line from
Ashland to Fredericksburg has been
refused, as it is to parallel the r.,
F. & p. The matter will be fought Out
in the next Legislature.
The board of directors of the pen
itentiary in report to Gov. Swanson
states that during the fiscal year ending
September SOth, 1907, the institution
cleared 500, 727, 18 over and above ex-
pences. This, too, despite the fact
that 2O6 convicts were engaged on the
public roads.
Attacked by an enormous flock of
crows, Paul Niles, an Illinois hunter,
barely escaped with his life. AS Niles
fired into the flock, wounding several,
the others attacked him. The man
started to run but was knocked down
and pecked about the face and eyes
and beaten almost insensible by the
birds wings. With great difficulty he
crawled to a nearby barn, with the
birds fighting him all the way, and it
was not until he was inside that thew
desisted. Niles is in a critical condi-
ton.
James l.. Williams, a hatmaker of
Danbury, Conn.,, and his wife have &C.
cupied the same house, taken their
meals at the same table together and
been in each others company almost
continually for FIVE years without speak
ing word to each other. Five years
ago they quarreled and Williams made
a VOW that he would never again speak
to his wife. He has kept it religiouslv.
and so completely was their affection
for each other severed in the quarrel
that the wife has not once begged for
word from her husband. Their cid
est daughter, Alice, nineteen years old,
took sides with her mother, and dur
ing the five years she has never ad
dressed her father, although she is a
member of the household. The couple
have two young children and have car
RED on what communication was neces-
sary through these. AS the wife can
hold out no longer she is sueing for di-
vorce.
Il am afraid to go out alone. I'd get
hurt or lost. I've been forty-seven
years behind prison walls, and / guess
| can wait few days more" So said
Frank Hoffman after he had been pa
rolled and given his liberty by New
fork's Parole Commission. Happy as
a child, he sat in the office of Warden
Frost, at Sing Sing, and chatted about
his prospective going out into the
world. He is sixty-seven years old,
and, despite his forty-seven years of
penal servitude, he is yet well pre-
served. "What are you going to do
after you reach New York;" he was
asked. go to work for Mrs. Maud
Booth. 1 am to be the landscape
gardener at Hope Hall. 1 am glad to
get the chance to begin life anew, even
though am an old man. I'll never
break my parole. for / want to die
free man. Ever since 1 was sent to
prison for life that has been nv con-
slant dream and fondest hope"