davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
Our Many Land Frauds.
(New York Commercial )

In the United States district court an alleged sWindler has been con- victed and sentenced to three years penal servitude for selling swampy and practically valueless land in New Jersey by fraudulent misrepresenta- tions regarding character of location and transit facilities. In this case the advertised lots as prizes in guessing contests. The questions were so easy that anyone could answer them, so all contestants drew prizes and were then told that they had to buy one or more adjoining lots because the state building laws had been changed. The evidence was amusing and proved how easy it is to get people to buy
 a pig in a poke. The scheme yielded a profit of $4O,00O drawn from the pockets of persons who never saw the land.
 This conviction should have a salu- tary effect. State laws and courts must
 be weak when such sWindlers can
 be reached only when they use the
 mails to defraud and thus come
 within the jurisdiction of the federal courts. In some cases where sales
 were made in offices without cOrre- spOndence of an discriminating char acter the victims are without re- dress.
 The New York Commercial has fraudulent land schemes repeatedly in recent years Some of them the authorities are unable to check through the artificial process of pros- ecution for misusing the mails Stock in fraud ulent land or loan companies can be sold by personal solicitation without mourning this risk, and this
 game has been so safe and profita ble in the past that it will not be aban- | doned as long as state courts and laws are inadequate or state auth critics i. are lax in the performance of their | duties. This conviction is a victory 1 but it does not cover the whole field as thoroughly as could be wished.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
ENGLAND CANNOT ACCEPT.
|. S. Proposals Regarding ToodstufIs
 Declares French Press.

Paris, Feb. 27. $40 a. m.-Ihe French press is unanimous in saying that Great Britain cannot accept the informal proposals said to have been made by the U. s., that the embargo on foodstuffs for Germany be raised provided Germany abandons her in- tention of destroying merchant ships The papers, however, express appre- citation of the spirit in which the pro- posals were made.
 The Matin declares the steps sug- gested would be carrying altruism al- together too far because every loaf/ which a civilian was able to spar3 would be a loaf the more for a soldier; in other words, the allies are asked to continue the war and sacrifice the lives of their soldiers in order to save German civilians from want
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
WHAT OTHERS SAY
Views on all sides Of timely questions as discussed in ex- changes that conlc 10 ueraih office.
Prohibition Running Amuck.
(Ncw York Times.)

(NCW Ork llneS.D
 In Birmingham. Ala. they have just arrested on d criminal charge Hiram R. De Lave, one of the largest news paper and magazine distributors in the city. His crime is punishable by fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500 and, in the discretion of the court, imprisonment at hard labor for not more than six months.
 The crime of De Laye consisted in selling d copy of a newspaper pup lished outside the state which con tained a liquor advertisement. The Alabama legislature passed, over the governors veto, law making this a penal offenSe. Therefore the people of Alabama will have to restrict them selves largely to reading home papers and will have to abandon to d great extent the habit of reading magazines. The newsdealers of Alabama have tried to meet the situation by cutting out the liquor advertisements before putting the newspapers and magazines | on sale. This" says De Lave, means much labor, as I handle more than 500 newspapers" and when the big Sunday papers arrive he will have to 1 employ q large force of helpers to handle the scissors. But this will
 not bother him long, for his customers will soon cease to buy remnants of newspapers. The Birmingham Age Herald prints a cartoon of an indig
 nant citizen trying to read the re- port of battle in Belgium and find ing the important part cut out be- cause a liquor advertisement was printed on the back.
 ''Iha arrpgt of MT 1a Lave gem
 tally explains the sheriff." in no way in the nature of making a test
 case, but means that he will be arrest cd every day, and possibly every five
 minutes if he keeps on violating the law The Montgomery Advertiser and the Birmingham News have de- termined to ignore the law, and an injunction has been issued against the former.
 This is prohibition run mad 1t is
 said to be the logical result of pro- hibition. If it is, so much the worse 1 for prohibition. Granted that pro- 1 hibition is a good thing, still there | are other interests in government and
 in human life, and they should not all be sacrificed to this. as if it were 1 not only the most important but the 1 only thing in the world. Carried to | it's logical extreme, this would permit
 states in which anti-cigarette or anti l racing laws exist to add thereto the | anti-liquor provision, and by the time | all these advertisements have been cut out the customer would not get much 1 for his money.
 It would appear that there is little l left in the way of insanity for the 1 prohibitionists to enact into law: One 1 thing does remain. They might enact
 a law providing that if citizen takes 1 drink in Tennessee and crosses into 1 Alabama he should be arrested on the ground that he had carried liquor into | the state.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
The New Citizen of This State.
(Chicago Tribune.)


 The announced and frankly cx- plaincd decision of Charles R. Crane to change his legal residence from Chicago to Woods Hole, Mass, fur nishes its own sufficient comment. MT Crane is type of citizen we can III afford to lose. but he does not pro- nose to submit to robbery and con- fscation in the guise of taxation. A fair and reasonable tax he would cheerfully pay, but threatened con fis"ation-plus. perhaps spectacular Hovne ndictments-suggest change of legal residence. If We do not hasten to amend our constitution and substitute a rational revenue system for the impossible and iniquitous one now "in force" against certain volun- tary or involuntary victims, we shall lose more and more citizens of MT. Cranes type.
 What however puzzles one is the choice of a Massachusetts town by MT. Crane The old Bay state, as it happens, has the same contiscatory general property tax as Illinois. That commonwealth has had troubles of the same nature, kind and degree as ours. It's legislature has been slow and divided against itself. Execu- tires. commissions and important civic bodies have pleaded and de- manded revenue reform-but in vain so far. According to trustworthy es- inmates given in the press of Boston and Springfield, capital has been leav- ing the state Co escape contiscati ton. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stocks and bonds have been removed to Connecticut and Rhode Island-states that had the good sense to moderniZe their revenue systems somewhat Editorials on tax reform in Chicago papers are reprinted with avidity in Massachusetts to reinforce home arguments. Illinois and Mass achusets are in the same boat as re- gards taxation. Those of our citizens who are driven out by confiscatory taxes should at least select d state whose reformed tax laws could be recommended as models or examples to Illinois. Then their action would have constructive propaganda value.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

Stanley Works passed To ana from their work not always without arous- ing the ire of the owner who was strongly opposed to trespassinis. Now their are a number of lWei,;ng houses there, school and , church upon which the assessors have pla ced a value of $150,000. The new church of the Lithuanian people is valued at $120,000. These properties are spe- officially mentioned for the reason that they furnish the most striking illus tration of devotion to religion. The parishioners are all poor people, yet they make great sacrifices in order to have a church building of their own. The Salvation Army has q place of worship valued at $6,0Oo. It seems as if when class of people want a church in this city one is always pro- Vided and it is seldom tha- it is built with only the money of those who are members. Others contIa Ijiite, even though they may nevereinte nd to en- ter and while some of the churches have a difficult time of it in paying their way it is always done for no one has ever seen the shcriff's notice on one of the doors vet. There was never even a change of ownership un- less it was for the removal of the building so as to make room for new and more comm OdiOus structure or to dispose of the property in order to remove to another location. The church property in New Britain is worth a large sum of money, over two millions of dollars apparently and represents long years of effort ,on the part of the owners The build- ings as general thing are kept in good condition and even those of small value, comparatively, are COinforta ble looking and the people feel just as proud of them as the owners of inc more pretentious edifCeS are of their own buildings. Another church is to be built in this city soon but so far as known that is the only one in sirbt
 All sects are pretty well provided for at present, except the colored peonle ana when they get their church. New Britain will be very Representative city of churches. -
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
BECKER HAS ONE MORE CHANGE

The action of the supreme court of New York in refusing the application for a new trial for Charles Becker under sentence of death for com plicity in the murder of Herman Ros- cnthal does not mean that he is not to have another trial, but simply passes upon the matter of granting a new trial on new evidence said to have been obtained through an aft1- davit alleged to have been made by negro who has already been a wit ness and who is now credited with having said that he swore falsely at the last trial If any such statement was made it has not been considered of sufficient importance to grant new trial. An appeal has been taken from the decision of the court in the and this case will be argued some- time during the latter part of next month If the supreme court decides in his favor then he will be granted d HcW lIldl, OlHSIWlSC lie VIII De eIectrocutcd unless the governor in terfercs and that does not seem likely as he was the attorney who prosecuted and convicted him. This matter has already been referred to in the New York papers and the gem
 eral impression Is that it would be a most embarrassing situation for him.
 Becker, it is said, still lhcrishes hope of a new tr,ni but there IS scarcely any doubt but that he is be- coming more and more reconciled to his fate and when his three compan- ions in the death house were led out to their doom yesterday morning, he was the one who talked to them more seriously than the others and urged them from the standpoint of religion to be brave and to believe in here after. Becker has always been cred ited with being policeman with much courage himself and he has thus far shown that he still has sand. He is in a position now where he needs it.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
South Turns on the Buzzard.
(Atlanta Constitution J

State Senator Wells, of Florida, wants the state to place bounty on the Slaughter of buZZardS, emphasiZ- ing the fact that science has driven about the last name in the old super Stition which gave the buzzard inn munity as a scaVenger. Science now says and with definite proof, that the buzzard is an agent for the spreading of hog cholera, and other diseases, among animals and human beings Therefore, the buzzard must go.
 Not many years ago the buzzard was hailed as Natures garbage dis posal plant. The uncouth bird was assumed to keep down the disease and death rates. People who visit ed Charleston, $. C.. will remember how the buzzards l-auntcd the his- torlc market place in that city, pros tected by city law. Other cities and many counties followed suit.
 Now science has stripped the buz- gard of illusion and it must go. If is interesting to observe that eon,o oq the men most active in the antibuz. gard propa ganda in south Georgia have been demonstration agents on the government. They are encou,- tering some difficulty in unturnin. tradition, but are making steady nro- SreSS.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
SHIP PURCHASE FEUD.

The formidable congressional op- position to his ship purchase plan
 according to the Literary Digest, is said to have been a surprise to the president just as his persistent ad
 Vocacy of it seems so inexplicable to some editorial writers that they con- sider it an obsession. It also adds that since the legislative managers of the measure have amended it again and again to meet the objections Of observers to see what it's friends can hope or it's foes fear from it's pas sage, newspaper readers are begin ming to wonder what the desperate fight is all about. Republicans i'll the senate conducted an almost re-
 cord-breaking filibuster and demo- crats countered with threats :" of a cloture rule, until the question of amending the senate rules became, in the words of Senator Root, much moro serious to the body than the ship purchase or any other bill.
 There have been caucuses and re- volts, talk of the party whip ana party loyalty, of dictatorship ana leadership, innumerable votes on countless amendments and points of order, with several apparent changes of position on the part of prominent senator's All of which has brought debaters on both sides to the point where they can attribute the opposi- ton they encounter only to the back ing of mysterious sinister forces Hence Senator Burton moves an in yestigation to find out whether any body in this country has been giving financial aid to the owners of ships detained in port on account of the war, or getting options on these ships and whether the persons, firms or corporations having made such loans or obtained such options have any connections, direct or indirect, With the government of the United States. This has been spoken of as an at tack the 1r1onQS or SIlp pul and particularly on MT. McAdoo, the secretary of the treasury. So we find the resolution amended and carried so that it includes all possible sinister forces on both sides, and an attempt will be made to discover what efforts the so-called shipping trust or any other interest has made to prevent the passage of what is commonly known as the ship purchase bill; also whether a lobby has been working in Washington to defeat the measure, and whether any United States sena- tors hold stock in companies owning ships which would compete with the i ships to be purchased or constructed i under the provisi ons of said bill.
 This double-edged investigation meets with the approval of the news papers in New York, where most of the suspected interests center
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

There Is a runOr at the state capitol to the effect that some Of the legislators who are being inter- viewed by the workers for the woman suffrage cause are telling the women that they will vote for the suffrage amendment when, as matter of fact, they do not intend to do any thing of the sort The reason for their position is obvious Such members do not care anything about suffrage, but they are embarrassed when con- fronted by the active, intelligent wo
 men who buttonhole them to lind where they stand.-Hartford Post.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

Even if New York does find all it's public service commissioners to have been lazy, incompetent and per haps even worse than that, there is nothing to indicate that the prac- tice of supervising public utilities by governmental boards is wrong. It merely shows that wrong men got the jobs-as sometimes happens in the case of bank cashiers and n1inist erS- Hartford Times.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
FACTS AND RANCHES.

Speaker Healey says that if the WCrkmen's compensation law does not exempt small employers the last gen. eIal assembly was deceived. And if it is made to, the men who work for small employers are buncoed, so there you are.--Waterbury Republican.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
kRATEs.

(ephone service It deal of con-
 Y ork lCgisla- hs If the whole hese companies the public ser his board will y or two on a of rates. This Rted in New
 it ilas seemed position to got has been sim in, but so far hing done be-
 some discus
 council com
 never found
 of the coun- however, been tity and one
 that he pro- ter before the sion at Hart I'd that he had
 data for use e the commis- ply be still en- n. The mat much prepara- the telephone
 which it nat Formation.
 me experience hess, for when t the right to
 in New Brit ve a bond that
 a competitor, the purchaser he bond to the hsiderable dis council at the y obtained it's ne line pa asseI hS always been ale those mat
 be a petition f rates it will ktitioners to be Hence when 1t ssion.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
TOWN TALK.

~ Quigley in vetoing the
 resolution passed by 1 the common council as a result of he haV- ing voted twice is to be commended, not es--~~.-~.-~ because of any lack Of wisdom on the part of the council but because it was brought about by a vote which he had no legal right 10 cast, notwithstanding the fact that the same thing had been done by two of his predecessors in office. Had the resolution referred to been deprived of the mayors second vote 1t would have been defeated but it will stand @ better chance of passage at the next m meeting because of the stand taken by the mayor and the fact that he IS in favor of it's adoption. There may, however, be a nice point in parliamen- tary law raised when the veto is read. Ordinarily the mode of procedure would be to pass the original resolu- ton, if desired, over the mayors head in order to make it effective and that is the action desired by the mayor, but if will take a two thirds vote of the council to do this and that means twenty one votes or six more than it had at the council meeting. If, how ever the council should vote to re- ceive the veto and place it on file d majority vote would be sufficient Later in the meeting a new resolution would be in order and a ma ajority vote could pass it and place the matter in the condition it was in when the coun- cil adopted it before and which caused the mayor to veto it. The whole mat ter is not of any great moment and certainly not enough to cause any great discussion in the council, all though it must be admitted that some very small matters have caused some lengthy discussions in that body. Tn this matter the question of salaries is involved and it may be that the comn- cil should feel as if the case for that reason required thoughtful consider ation lest the action taken may be far reaching in it's effect The question itself comes from the board of health with the endorsement of the superin- tendent who has developed into a most interesting city official who not only thoroughly understands the needs of his own department but is rapidly obtaining a correct line on the city business in gen eral. It is good sign for heads of departm ments to appear at the council meetings and answer all questions that may be asked by a member. No ai- derman or councilman is so well post ed on city affairs that he does not need some more information, especial ly during a debate when facts are nec- essary in order to bring about prop CT understanding of the matter under discussion. If the heads of all depart ments were present and the council made inquiries when formation was desired there would not be many un- wise votes cast. New Britain has be- come such large city in a sense con- pared to what 1t used to be that no one can carry all it's business around Tn his head. He must have help and the place to get information is from those who have it.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

An unskillcd laborer can learn to De a farm hand if he approaches his ed- ucational opportunity in proper spirit of humility, but as a rule his spirit is one of cOndescensiOn. There is no egotism as impregnable as that of the man who has nothing to boast of save that he is city bred and was never before in the country.-Norwich Record.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

The report of the assessors this week on the amount of untaNa ble property in the list shows what a city New Britain is so far as churches are concerned Practically every sect is representcd in the list and in some instances the growth has been won derful particularly dtnOng foreiGn speaking people, some Of whom are conoparativeiy new corners to the city. Take the Polish church on Broad street for instance. It is not so many years ago since the site of this pretty
 edifce was a pasture lot through
 which hundreds of e1nrloSes of the
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

Coming right down to brass tacks how much did these players who are leaving the game or going to jump their contracts hver earn. or how much could they earn today if it wasn't for baseball ?-Norwich Bulletin
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

The Predetermined person is, obVi- oEsly, a menace to the community Such person, especially a girl or woman, is unable to meet the tempta- tions to wrong-doing to which all per sens are more or less exposed, with the strength and judgment which makes resistance possible. Because of this, children are brought into the world handicapped from the start with men tai and moral effectiveness. The jail and the reformatory are not the right rlaces for those whose misdoing is cue to ignorance and weakness rather than to wilful disregard of the laws of right living. They need expert medical supervision and treatment, in surroundings calculated to promote physical and mental health, where they can live and work under suffi- cient restraint to insure safety to themselves and to the community at large, yet not as a prisoners.-Water bury American.
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

Superintendent Beede of the New Haven schools has no use for the bill introduced at Hartford that would impose a fine of $100 upon any teacher keeping a pupil after school more than five minutes at noon or fifteen minutes in the afternoon. Worse than that, he even speaks respectfully of the good old days when the rod" was in fashion as an educational access sOrN.-Bridgeport Standard
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27
IASE.

Says that most make it a rule (tient suffering base of it's ex- Information re- y to the near
 1t appears to
 g lay people
 apt to be due
 sequently they
 Ee of this con-
 of large ex-
 ow that cases
 r instance, .
 heart which lddenly, have E from fear or [e in their beds.
 rst came into ht it would de- |ecause of the
 be placed on Afterwards said
 almost a arity kd heart among
 way active In The general i'm Eicans lived too fconstant hurry
 $ was not fn ordinarily goes ketes as a rule
 ough they are f health and
 of performing pf endurance. hy instances Of h John l.. Sul- Ian and before 1t was said that bart and as evi- &ained that nc br several min hg the beatinc hing that is al |g large men. efries were ex-
 before one oi Esician reported hearts, supposed hard tr ain : kquires greateI he main contes'
 to say that he If a dozen times tile. Certificates Insurance com treat many per Fease, more thar
New Britain herald., 1915-02-27

State legislation illustrates over and over the fact that the people have no fixed purpose in view, just the same as the changes municipally every year or two to transact the public's business. Almost every member of the house and senate at Hartford, this year, Mas some pet scheme to put through. and in order to accomplish it will trade with some other member to ac- complsh the purpose. The result is more burden for the taxpayers every time.-Middletow Penny Press.