Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1913-12-04
State Fire Marshal Gathering
Evidence in Kansas City.
TOO MANY INCENDIARY FIRES
Mr.. Parkman Has Special Deputy
at Work investigating Suspicious
5lazes in Large Cities of
State.


cial deputy Of the department to the
Kansas side to gather evidence on
suspicious fires in that city recently.
There Is strong evidence of this
arson gang working in Kansas City,"
said Mr.. Parkman the other day. I'VE
don't know whether the headquarters
is on the Missouri or Kansas side, but
: there have been several suspicious
fires on the Kansas side recently that
seemed to have been started by the
same agency.
I'VE are getting the incendaries in
Kansas. This department began OPP
erations in April, and since then sixty
eight suspected incendiary fires have
been investigated. The department
believes that a large proportion of
these fires were actually of incendiary
origin, the alleged motive in almost
all cases being to collect the insurance
money. OF the entiree sixty-eight
cases only twelve have been dropped
by the department on account of lack
of evidence.
Six men have been given sentences
based on information charging them
with arson in various degrees. Three
are now in the state penitentiary, one
is In the reformatory and two are
serving jail sentences. Eight men
and two women have been tried in
Justice courts and bound over to the
next term of the district court"
The first of the seed wheat notes
was paid off by farmer in Cove
Cove county. Charles M. Sawyer,
state bank commissioner and the
treasurer of the seed wheat fund, has
received letter from Grainfield
banker asking for the note of one of
its customers. This farmer has rented
his wheat field to another farmer for
pasturage for enough money to pay
off the note the farmer had given for
the wheat the seed wheat club had
loaned him. The note was for $34.4O,
given for forty bushels of wheat, and
the farmer had sown almost sixty
acres. The wheat came up quickly
and has made such growth that it is
fine pasturage. The rains came just
right to start the wheat growing al
most as soon as it was put in the
ground and in some instances farmers
report the wheat has attained too
much growth already this fall and
they are actually hunting for stock to
pasture 1t down.
One Kansas author has retired from
the contest for the honor of writing
the Kansas history text to be used in
the Kansas schools. Word has been
received at the offices of the state
school book commission in Topeka
that State Senator A. B. Carney of
Concordia will not submit any manu-
script to the commission for its next
meeting.
That increases in telephone rates
conditional on improvements to be
made in service and equipment will
not be considered until after the i'm
provements are made, was the policy
announced for the Public Utilities COM
mission, following an informal con-
ference with number of Bell tele-
phone officials.
The state fish hatchery has done
fairly well for dry year. Prof. L. L.
Dyche, state fish and game warden, is
loading the fourteenth car of fish for
distribution this fall and still has
forty ponds yet to be drained and the
fish taken out for distribution Only
about seventy of the ninety ponds at
the hatchery were available for fish
growing this year because Of the dry
weather and the poor condition of the
ponds. II would like to get out
twenty or twenty-five cars before the
cold weather actually comes" said
Prof. Dyche. 1--WE will keep on dis
tributing until the rivers and ponds
freeze over. Then we will have to
stop until spring." Several abandoned
strip" coal pits in Southeast Kansas
are being stocked with fish this win
ter. These holes are filled with water
from five to fifty feet deep and cover
several acres of ground.
The Kansas Bankers Association
has committee on agriculture which
is working to bring the farmer and
banker in close relation for the pur-
pose of improving agriculture in Kan
sas and getting bigger farm yields.
n
That the Postal Telegraph Company
is using its privilege of filing COM
plants with the Public Utilities COM
mission to have printed in the news
papers false statements regarding the
Bell corporation is the contention of
the company in its answer to the com
plaint of the Postal.
@
The supreme court of Kansas has
allowed the petition for a writ of
error by John H. Greenless in his suit
against Fred L. Morris, involving the
title to some Indian grant land in
Oklahoma.