Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-08-23
'WO0DSMEN "MISLED"
TO WORK IN MAINE

| Nearly every day a large number
Of woodsmen come down from Som
erset line and start on their return
! to Boston. These men for the most
| part were hired through some of the
employment agencies in Boston and
who thought that they were coming
into a job where there was little to
do wherethere was plenty to eat and
where liquid refreshments could be
secured as easily as in Boston.
In the party which was in the city
Wednesday was one young fellow who
said that the employment agent who
hired him told him that he would have
only to work eight hours a day, that
they were given what was practically
| hotel fare and that the work was very
! easy, practically all of it being done
| by machinery and about all the men
| had to do was to stand around and
see that the machines went all right
and occasionally they would have to
work hard for few minutes to fix
! things up. He also said that there
was about 100 men q day going into
| the woods at this time and that from
| 60 to IS coming out. The operators
are all short of men and are doing
everything possible to get more but
are finding it hard to keep them. He
said that in the bunch there was just
| about money enough to get them
back to Boston where they were re-
| solved to stay.
! A man we'll past middle life who
had been sent into the woods by one
| of the employment agencies was in the
| city Wednesday on his way back to
Boston, some of the returning men
| from the camp looking after him. The
| fellow appeared harmless enough. He
did not seem different from many of
the others in the crowd he was sent
in with but the next morning when
he was given an axe and told to 60
| TO work he suddenly started after the
whole bunch and it took some great
hustilng to get out of his way One
teilow climbed a tree and was con-
graduating himself on being safe when
the crazy man appeared beneath him
| and started cutting the tree down.
; 1t was entirely new work to him. the
| tree being rather large and as a re-
suit the work progressed very slow
! ~. After a time he stopped to resi-
/ ''4iA GU pPSu idch 10 TX MS axe to
some distance. The fellow in the tree
! TOOK a chance and jumped landing
squarely on the maniac's back. Some
OF the other men in the outfit also
got their courage up and were near
ana between them they were able to
subdue him. The fellow was taken
out to a nearby town and turned over
TO the sheriff who watched him care
lully Tor time and then declared that
ne was all right and that his out
break Of the morning was probably the
result of drunk. He allowed the
reno" TO have room in a boarding
/ mouse that night and when morning
came the fellows clothes were there
/ with the exception of his pants and
he was missing.
Later IN the day he got a renort
from crew Of a freight train that
they had found him setting in canoe
"hlch he had placed squarelv across
the rails. and that he was madeline
away for dear life. but with An i'm
aglnary paddle. They took him in
charge and took him to the station and
there the sheriff looked out for him
until the crowd going out of the voods
came along and they agreed to see
7 mat he got back to his home in Ros-
ton safely.