Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1920-12-04
REAL FACTS STRA NICER THAN
VEIRDES T FICTION STORIES
naonaon Of the Most Gifted Novelist 0utdone by Lies Real
Romances-No One Could Have Imagined or Written
Such Stupendous Tragedy as the War the
World Has lust Gone Throuuh

| VINO has been called the MAN With
/ out Country" and the Human shut.
! tie who sails the high seas from
country 10 country, everywhere dc,med
an undesirable and turned away by
/ the immigration authorities. With no
! country 10 go to. he sails from port
to port, citizen of Nepune's do
mains, perhaps changing ships occa-
/ Slohally, but always travelling the
seas. 1t is time for him 10 arrive hazel,
at some American port from Bueno$
i AEreS or some other remote port
and for few days the newspapers
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
50 many times thar 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-
/ fore their eyes-and some are women.
There was recently the true story
Of the Greek steamship ThessaioniEl
that fought ninety-mile gales for
i week during the heaviest winter
weather on the Atlantic. With engines
disabled and TODD lockers empty. un-
til help stood 10y to take off crew aud
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 10
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,
/ thfevery, 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 rs
romantic as any love story in the tic-
ton of Thomas Hardy-although Har-
| dy carried his eases to the courts and
frequently to the galloWs. There are
murders for love, murders for great
Spoils and sums of money, and strang-
er than 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 mar
ders in this city? Or the Italian ven
dettas Ia 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 disappOntments in
chief interest in life? In the hand Of
a master plOtter and character sketch
er they are romance. but In the police
records they are merely sordid un-
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 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 STAY him. There Is the same sort