The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1920-11-26
REAL FACTS STRANGER Than
WEIRDEST FICTION STORIES
Imagination of the Most Gifted Novelist 0utdone by Les Real
Romances-No One Could Have Imagined or Written
Such Stupendous Tragedy as the War the
World Has lust Gone Throuqh

who has been called the MAN With.
out a Country" and the Human Shut
tle," 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
AyreS or some other remote port
and for a 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
so many times that sometimes the
newspapers omit any mention of them.
They range from lads Of 10 and II
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 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
apd 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
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 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
dppOiHlcu 1--we dS TIE IuOIlVe, now
many foolish SWANS can be found each |
year in metropolitan district of |
100000, and how many suicides are
committed after disappointments in a |!
chief interest in life? In the hand of |
a n sster 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 a man.
sion in Greenwich, Conn.,, and, firing
at pistol flashes in the dark, after bull
let's had smashed his hand electric
lamp with tinkling of glass, killed
two burglars who were waiting there
to STAY him. There is the same sort