Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-09-05
Maine Gossip
AN OLD HOUSE

Empty 1t STANDS, smell untenanted;
Rereft of life. of laughter and of tears;
Gone are its guests of long, long
yestcr-years,
Dust are its hosts-all, all as phan-
toms fed
Through broken panes (once bright as
eyes now dead
The foggy breeze awales the cham
deliers;
Their crystal lustres tinile in our ears
The ghost of voices argentine. Our
tread
Wakes echoes in the mouldy music
room,
Where Cupids from the cornices still
Beneath the dust of years a silver
grey.
This house, o hearts now powder in
the tomb,
This house. your shelter, waits a
weary while
A chrysais when Psyche winged
away.
Forum.
The Biddeford taxes this year will
be levied under a tax rate of SO mills,
the highest in the history of the city.
Increase in state and county taxes
and appropriations for sewer work
and improvements are said to have
caused the increase.
Many people returning to their
home states from Maine are carrying
small evergreen trees on the running
board of their cars Many of them
pack the roots of the trees in moss
and burlap, intending to set them
out when they get home and thereby
have a handsome tree from the place
in Maine where they enjoyed their
vacations. as growing souvenir of
their trip.
Considerable interest is being
aroused in the Statewide referen-
dunn on Oct. Is. on a proposed As
hour-law for Maine. Labor orsanf-
cations plan to hold meetings and
put in some intensive campaign work
during the next two weeks, it is I'M
derstood Already out of State rep
resentatives of the American Fed
Grafton of Labor are now making a
canvass of the industrial centers.
The Associated Industries Will
present vigorous opposition.
There is a possibility that the
North end peat bogs at Bath may
yet be found to have a commercial
value says the Bath Times. An in
vestigation of the peat deposits of
the country as a source of fuel has
already been ordered by Secretary
Work People living at the North
end have from time to time in the
last half century said the deposits
have made their presence decidedly
noticeable by the odors that have
emanated from them when they have
been fired in the fall of the year AS
they can we'll testify the deposits
have burned for many weeks at a
time and while inactive since 1917,
their presence has not been forgot
ten.
Visitors to the Old German church
in Waldoboro have been interested
in the ancient tablet of slate taken
from the old graveyard at Meeting
House Cove. the resting place of the
first settlers. says The Lincoln
County News. The inscription trans
lated from the German reads: Here
lies buried Mr.. John Martin Gross
and was born the first of February.
1879 and has died the eleventh of
February, 1868, in his ninetieth
y
gravestone in town. It was found
in a stone- wall that had been built
around the old graveyard. Recent
developments prove it to be the stone
of one John Gross. an ancestor or
the late Peter Gross of Dutch Neck.
The tablet was made by Isaac Sargus
who was the first painter in Waldo
boro.
Two thousand dollars in cash, to
be known as the Charles Boardman
HAYES prize, is offered at the At
script of a story of adventure, pre-
ferably not less than 10000 words,
to be sent to the Atlantic Monthly
Offices. Arlington street, Boston
between Sept. l. 1923 and Oct. 1,
1924. Charles Boardman Halves was
a Maine man and a Bowdein gradu-
ate class of 1911, is the author of
three books of adventure of the high
seas. 1.-THE Mutineers." THE Great
Quest" and 1.-THE Dark Frigate."
10th here and in England he is
recognized as leading writer of ad-
venture tales. The Atlantic Monthly
Press offers this prize in recognition
of his fine work, and in the hope of
discovering another author suffi-
GENTLY gifted to succeed to Mr..
Hawes' place as writer of adven-
ture stories. Mr.. Halves died sudden
ly last July at the age of "a years.
Bangor will have the distinction
of being one of the three cities on
the Atlantic coast to receive a visit
from the special comHaittee of the
United States Senate, which is in
quiring into the question of re-
torestaticn and other matters per-