The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1920-11-26
REAL FACTS STRANGER THAN
WEIRDES 7 FICTION STORIES
imagination of the Most Gifted Novelist 0utdoe by Lies Real
homances-No One Could Have Imagined or Written
Such Stupendous Tragedy the War the
World Has Just Core Through

VINO mas been called the MAN With
out Country and the Human Shut
tie" who sails the high seas from
country to country, everywhere deemed
an undesirable and turned away by
the immigration authorities. With no
country to go to, he sails from port
to port, a citizen of Neptune's do
mains, perhaps changing ships occa-
sionally, but always travelling the
seas. 1t is time for him to arrive back
at some American port from Buenos
AyFes or some other remote port
and for few days theznewspapers
again will record his story which is
stranger than fiction.
Stowaways Are Common.
StowaWays by. hundreds come into
this port from all the countries of the
world and their stories have been told
so many times that sometimes the
newspapers omit any mention of Them
They range from lads of 10 and u
years old to old men with the vision
of adventure in a new land still be-
lore their eyes-and some are women.
There was recently the true story
OF the Greek steamship Thessaloniki
that fought ninety-mile gales for a
week during the heaviest winter
weather on the Atlantic, with engines
disabled and food lockers empty, I'M
til help stood by to take off crew and
passengers. The ship was never seen
again.
Then there is the mystery of the Cy-
clops, which@ never reached her port
and was swallowed up in the high
seas.
These are stories the reader feels
to be far more strange than fiction,
for while fiction seems to struggle to
be real or realistic, the truth seems to
struggle to be unreal and fantastic,
or at least romantic.
Plots of many of the great operas
of some great novels, and of many
works of fiction not so great, are based
upon police court cases, upon murders,
thievery, or some other crime. Ac-
companied by music and surrounded
by the jewels of the Diamond Horse
shoe, the sordid crime story may be-
come "high art"
In many of the hundred or so MUIR
ders in this city every year fire.
quently there are a score which. be-
fore the police step in, are Just as
romantic as any love story in the fic-
ton of Thomas Hardy-although Har-
dy carried his cases to the courts and
frequently to the gallows. There are
murders for love, murders for great
spells and sums of money, and strang-
erAthan any fiction are the unsolved
murders committed in this city in silk,
bond and whisky thefts.
Strange Murders.
Where in fiction is anything more
fantastic than that unsolved murder
of two Chinese government representa-
tives in the Chinese embassy at Wash
ington or some of the Chinese MUIR
ders in this city? Or the Italian ven
dettas in this city, many of whose
killings never find their way into print
because the crimes are so numerous?
And the romantic MURDERS" with dis
appointed love as the motive, how
many foolish SWANS can be found each
year in a metropolitan district of
100000, and how many suicides are
committed after disappointments in a
chief interest in life? In the hand of
master plotter and character sketch
er they are romance, but in the police
records they are merely sordid, I'M
pleasant chronicles, but nevertheless,
like fiction and true
A few months ago Major Alden G.
McMurtry, an officer who was dis
appointed at not seeing service in
France, entered the cellar of a man.
sion in Greenwich, Conn.,, and, firing
at pistol flashes in the dark, after bull
lets had smashed his hand electric
lamp with a tinkling of glass, killed
two burglars who were waiting there
to slay him. There is the same sort