Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1916-12-23
District Judge Ruppenthal Tells
Governor Capper of Need
For Reform.
SYSTEM is TOO COMPLICATED
Present Procedure Serves Only to Con-
fuse the People, Says the Rus
sell County Jurist-

of ]. C. RuppenthaI, judge of the dis
trict court in Russell county. In a
letter to Governor Capper, Judge Rup-
penthal indicts the Kansas court sys-
tenn, which he says is better than
most states but not good enough for
Kansas
I'VE have too many courts, too
many judges, too many different kinds
of courts" Judge Ruppenthal said.
I'VE have too complicated procedure,
too many court officials, too little flex-
Utility, too little provision for ade-
quately doing the court work fully at
all times and places under al circum-
stances. We have too many unframed,
inexperienced Judges too many
courts with no legal training. We
let one judge work $50 to 800 days in
a year, and twenty-five miles away is
another who works only seventy-five
or one hundred days, it is said. If
work piles up for any reason in one
district, we have no provision tore
duce it, even if the next judge has
nothing to do.
Our people are needlessly confused
by the number of courts and the need
of certain technical knowledge where
to go for any particular kind of relief
or redress. We have too many differ
ent county officials, each doing a part
of the clerical work of the judicial
department of government.
"Our system of handling moneys in
court is wasteful and antiquated. At
all times in Kansas there are probably
$1,000,000, and maybe more, in the
hands of courts with no definite pub
lie supervision or control, no public
deposit, no public accounting, exami-
nation or report; in a way a private
spoil as to its income"
* x x
Corporation Sues Itself.-Attorneys
for the Prairie Pipe Line Company,
after preparing a petition for damages
against their own company in favor
of Mrs. Walter E. Null, and filing it,
asked the court to award judgment
against them for the largest amount
possible under the compensation law.
The court awarded Mrs. Null $2,726.
The attorneys added enough to this
amount to total $4,000. Mrs. Null is
the WIDOW of Walter E. Null, formerly
a machinist in the company's plant
near Caney, Kas., where he was killed
while at work.
Big Crowds at RevivaI.-No church
building at Utica is large enough to
accommodate the crowds at the re-
vival being conducted by the Rev. J.
A. Hutchins, evangelist of Rifle, Col.
Overflow meetings are being held in
several churches and gospel teams
are coming nightly by motor car from
Ness City, Ransom and Brownell.
x x
U. S. commi ssioner ouits.-Curtice
Tv,it nI
States commissioner at Wichita, has
resigned to enter the wholesale shoe
trade. His successor has not been
named. Mr.. Sherman's father was
commissioner there twenty-five years.
Couple Welded Fifty Years-Mr
and Mrs. D. d Ayers celebrated their
golden wedding at their home in Wa
mego recently. They were married in
Atchfson County, Kansas, December g,
1866.
x. U. Gets Inca SkuIIs.-Two well
preserved skulls of the race of extinct
Inca Indians wrapped in well pre-
served cloth made more than 1000
years ago, have been received by H.
T. Martin, curator of the paleontologi-
cal museum at the University of Kan
sas from Miss Beryl Lovejoy, a uni
versity graduate now teaching at
Lima, Peru. The skulls were found
on sandy plain of Peru with the hand
woven cloth wrapped partially around
them The fact that the design in the
cloth can still be seen and the tex
ture still is strong, is attributed by
Mr.. Martin to the fact that practically
no rain falls in the section of Peru
where the skulls were found. The
Incas have been extinct for centuries.
1t was their habit to bury their dead
with cloth wrapped about the bodies
Ford Sold for SIS, ooo-A month ago |
Deering Marshall and Harry Heimple |
traded a Ford car for an oil lease |
twenty feet wide and mile long, near |
Augusta. The lease is on the Purcell |
farm, which has a 400-barre1 well on |
it. Recently the Van Arsda1e-MarshalI |
Oil and Gas Company paid Marshall |
and Heimple $4,000 for the lease.
x
Kansas Educator Dies-George w.
Kendrick, SO, is dead in Wichita from |
a stroke of paralysis. He was prom |
inent educator OF Kansas. In 1911
and 1912 he was superintendent of the |