News Writing Part 28

"1. We will look upon no young woman with favor who spends more than $15 a year for hats. Only one hat should be worn throughout the year. We think it possible that hats may be trimmed over and worn for several years.

"2. No cosmetics should be used. Powder might be used in the case of a sallow girl.

"3. Perfumes are absolutely under the ban as a needless and disagreeable expense.

"4. Additional hair should not be bought. It is an extravagance and is contrary to the purpose of nature.

"5. Not more than $40 a year should be expended for dresses and suits.

"6. Jewelry, with the exception of a wedding ring, is no adornment, to our way of thinking. Off with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and the like.

"7. Silk stockings are the one extravagance allowed. Scientists say that silk stockings prevent the wearer from being struck by lightning.

"8. Five dollars a year is the amount necessary for shoes.

"9. Laces of all descriptions making for an appearance of frivolity should not be used in dress.

"10. All other necessaries of dress should not cost more than $25 a year."

_EIGHT COIN-BOX ROBBERS CAUGHT_

In the arrest last night of five men and three women as they were wrapping piles of five-cent pieces into one-dollar rolls in an elaborately furnished apartment near Audubon Avenue and 172d Street, the police have found the thieves who have been concerned in all the telephone slot-box robberies during the past three years and have robbed the New York Telephone Company of thousands of dollars.

The men and women under arrest have used a powerful automobile in going about the city, robbing the slot boxes with skeleton keys and files. The men arrested gave the following names and ages:--Tom Morrison, 21; Nic Marino, 26; Adam Neeley, 25; William O. Cohen, 30; and Charles Guise, 25. The women were Della Thomas, 25; Dorothy Price, 25; and Dollie Lewis, 25.

For more than two years the New York Telephone Company has endeavored unsuccessfully to trap these thieves in their robberies of the pay stations. Buzzers were affixed so that an attempt to open them would sound a warning, but, despite that, the thefts continued. Acting Captain Jones, of the Third Branch, and Acting Captain Cooper, of the Fourth Branch Detective Bureaus, who directed the arrests, declare that the women did the telephoning and opened the coin boxes, and that one of the men, coming to the booth from the telephone as if to call, reached in a hand or a small bag and took the coins.

_BREEZE AND RAIN PRODUCER DISCOVERED_

Prof. Marblenut, Dopetown's imminent (correct) scientist, has arranged to furnish this city with a perpetual cool breeze and two showers a week, all next summer. The breeze is to be made by a gigantic electric fan operated by current generated in a plant on the banks of Little Muddy, at Pigankle Falls. This monster fan will be made of steel. The showers will be made by an apparatus built on the same principle as a Chinese laundryman's face when he takes a mouthful of water and sprays the wash. The water will come from the river and will be filtered, then sprayed over the city from the face of a colossal Chinese figure standing on the left bank of the river above the power house.

Prof. Marblenut is the same man who attempted suicide with a bakery doughnut when his wife left him last year. A friend took the deadly thing from him and saved his life.

_BOB LA FOLLETTE STILL INCONSISTENT_

Senator Robert M. La Follette faced an audience of about 300 men in the armory on Tuesday night. He arrived rather late as if to so sharpen the appet.i.te of curiosity that his unsavory oratorical courses might be bolted without inspection and denunciation of the chef. The Senator was conducted to the stage and introduced by a.s.semblyman Ballard. His arrival was greeted with only an inkling of applause from one corner of the gallery occupied by a few college students. Near the stage rested Peter Tubbs and Senator Culbertson, sphinx-like in the desert of progressivism meditating on the grandeur of past political glory abused and lost. To the men an occasional political riddle was proposed by the speaker for solution.

The Senator's speech lasted nearly three hours, two of which were devoted to ancient history, and one to sharp criticisms of the Philipp administration. From the beginning of things in Wisconsin, the Senator traced the growth of democratic inst.i.tutions on the one hand and that of corporations on the other. The alleged incessant struggle for mastery between them was described with stage sincerity. It appeared, from his account, that the people were losing ground up to the time of his birth a half century or more back. And there was a dearth of honest men and patriotic statesmen in the state until the Senator was old enough to hold public office....

_CLAUDE OLDS DIES FROM COASTING INJURIES_

Claude Olds, 12-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. George Olds, Wilson Street, died at 3:45 o'clock yesterday afternoon at St.

Elizabeth Hospital as a result of injuries sustained in a coasting accident, related briefly in these columns yesterday.

The lad sustained a broken neck and internal injuries.

Dr. Alvin Scott of the Bowman park commission, who was instrumental in providing safe toboggan slides for the children in the city park, has decided since yesterday's fatal accident to ask the city commission for an appropriation sufficient to establish a number more of toboggan slides for the accommodation of children in various parts of the city. He is proceeding on the very safe a.s.sumption that if there had been a toboggan slide in the Third Ward the fatality of yesterday would not have happened, for there would then have been no occasion for children coasting on the hill where the accident occurred.

The unfortunate lad, with his brother, Ernest Olds, and Chester Graves and Bessie Lamb, were on a delivery sled owned by the Barnes and Scholtz Grocery Company, sliding down a hill that extends into the ravine just north of Second Street and east of Mason. When about halfway down the bob capsized and the little Olds boy was buried under it. Coasting on hills not especially prepared for it is dangerous to life and limb. The authorities should put a stop to it in Bowman, but at the same time the city should make safe provision for such sport by erecting toboggan slides similar to the ones in the city park.

_MRS. DOWS SEEKING ADVENTURE_

Mrs. Andrews Dows, whose photograph is reproduced above, says she believes she is the most adventuresome of New York's society women, but is tired of the humdrum existence of Mother Earth in general and New York in particular. She says she thinks she has run the entire gamut of worldly thrills, but is still on the lookout for something new. Mrs. Dows declares she has ridden the most fiery of steeds and taken them over the most dangerous jumps. She has driven auto racing cars at blinding speed. Once she captured a burglar single-handed. She has piloted all manner of water speed craft. Now she declares she is tired of flitting through the clouds in an aeroplane and is impatiently waiting to hear of some sort of dangerous adventure that she has not already experienced.

_B._ What criticism may be made of the following?

An even one hundred reservations have been made for the New Year's Eve dinner to be served at 11 o'clock in the Venetian room at the Carman House, and thirty have been made for service in the cafe. No more can be accommodated in the Venetian room, but the management will be able to take care of a few more in the cafe and French room. Those who have reserved places are planning to make this the biggest New Year's jollification ever held in Avondale. The management of the Carman also says that patrons will be given the very best of service.

_C._ Examine the following story for its excellence in keeping the time relation entirely clear. Show how the writer obtains this clearness and how he avoids the possibility of libel. (Paragraphs =124-131=.)

_DEATH NOTE BEARS AUTHOR'S TRAGEDY IN LOVE_

Four years ago the love story of Myrtle Reed, the author, who had immortalized her husband, James Sydney McCullough, in prose and verse, came to a tragic end when she committed suicide in "Paradise Flat," her Kenmore Avenue apartment. During the five years of her married life her "model husband," as she called McCullough, was believed to have furnished the inspiration for "Lavender and Old Lace," "The Master's Violin," and other love stories from her pen.

Mystery shrouded her death and an effort was made to hush up the suggestion that she was convinced that her husband no longer loved her. A note addressed to her aged mother was never made public.

Yesterday in Circuit Judge Windes's court her father, Hiram V.

Reed, sought to have McCullough deposed as trustee of her estate of about $91,000. Negligence and misapplication of funds were charged. Mr. Reed's attorney planned to show that Mrs.

McCullough expected to change her will before she committed suicide.

What purported to be the mysterious note was offered in evidence. It was typewritten and only two words of script appeared in it. Judge Windes ruled that it was not sufficiently identified and rejected it as evidence. The offered note reads in part:

"Dearest Mother: After five years of torment I have set myself free. I suppose you'll think it's cowardly, but I cannot help it. I cannot bear it any longer. Last night was the twelfth anniversary of our meeting. He was to come home early and bring me some flowers, and instead of that he came home at half past one so drunk he couldn't stand up.

"Last year my birthday and the anniversary of our engagement were the same way. This morning he went out of town without even waking me up to say goodby to me or telling me where he was going or when he would be back.

All I asked of him was that he should come home sober at half past six as other men do, but he refuses to give me even this. I am crushed, overwhelmed, drowned.

"I enclose two bank savings books. This is for you and father and for n.o.body else under any circ.u.mstances whatever, aside from the provision I have made for you in my will. I've tried my best, mother. I've tried to bear it bravely and to rise above it and not to worry, but I cannot. I loved my husband so until he made me despise him. I should have done this five years ago, only you and father needed me.

"You've been the dearest father and mother that anybody ever had and my being dead won't make any difference in my loving you. My will is in Mr. Fowler's vault. Oh, mother, I've loved so much, I've tried so hard, I've worked so hard, and I've failed, failed, failed, failed.

Forgive me, please. With love always, "Myrtle."

McCullough was out of the city at the time of his wife's death.

Upon his return he said that she had probably taken her life while mentally unbalanced.

"Have you any comment to make on the letter written by your wife to her mother?" he was asked yesterday.

"Oh, I could tell you a long story if I wanted to," said he, carelessly. "There's nothing to it at all. I could show you worse letters than that. I doubt if she ever wrote it anyway.

There is no proof. To understand this matter you must know that my wife's father and her brother have been fighting to get control over her estate. They didn't get enough to satisfy them under the will."

Although Judge Windes refused to depose McCullough as administrator, he ordered him to make a definite report, setting forth the condition of the property, with a list of all disburs.e.m.e.nts. Further, he directed that McCullough should report from time to time as the court might direct and ordered him to give a permanent bond of $50,000. The court said that the trustee's conduct had been improper.[52]

[52] _Chicago Tribune_, July 15, 1915.

_D._ Indicate and correct the faults in the following stories (paragraphs =131-134=):

1. While Mrs. Stanley Barnes was making fruit salad at the Baptist parsonage Thursday she lost her wedding ring in it.

Clark Webster was sick Friday morning, and for a time it was thought that he had eaten it in the salad, but a calmness was restored in these parts when it was learned that she had failed to put it on when leaving home in the morning.

2. Hereafter it shall be written by way of simile: "As fair as a Hinsdale blonde." Rainwater is the answer. Rainwater! Rainwater, such as used to seep off the kitchen roof into the eave trough and into the barrel at the corner.