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| Breaker boys, Pennsylvania Coal Co. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Wednesday, December 10, 1902.
WIDOWS SAD STORY.
Her Husband Was Killed in the Markle Mine.
LEFT WITH FOUR CHILDREN.
Kept Boys at School Till They Were 14—It Took the Earnings of Herself and the Two Boys 13 years to Pay Off a Debt For Rent—Refused to Re-Employ Strikers.
Scranton, Dec. 10.—Tales of eviction from houses owned by G. B. Markle & Co., the narration of the death of a wife as a result of an enforced removal from her home and the story of a mother whose husband was killed in the Markle mines, of how she and her two boys struggled for years to pay the Markles the back rent and coal bill she owed them, were the principal features of the sessions of the coal strike arbitration commission
The miners concluded the calling of witnesses against the Markle company. The attorneys for the large coal companies have nothing to say regarding the testimony now being presented but those representing the miners are well pleased. One of the latter, speaking of the proceedings, said:
"The independent operators in their meeting with the big companies in New York two weeks ago, when they succeeded in blocking the proposed settlement, said the whole matter should go before the commission so that the country at large would know who is right and vindicate the coal companies. We are willing to go ahead with the proceedings if they are satisfied with the 'vindication' they are now getting.''
National Board Member Gallagher resumed the witness stand at the afternoon session and explained the powder question as best he could, concluding this part of his testimony by saying the miners employed by the Markle company do not get the 10 per cent increase because of the peculiar way the company has of figuring the increase in wages agreed upon at the end of the 1900 strike.
Money Deducted For Priest.
The witness presented several of his own wage statements which showed that something had been deducted for a priest. When asked what this meant he said he did not know. It was taken off his earnings ever since he went into the mines, and he simply dismissed it because he did not object to the assessments.
An 18-year-old Hungarian slate picker employed by the Markle company said that before the strike he received 85 cents a day, now he received only 55 cents. The company never notified him of the reduction and he still does the same work.
Mrs. Kate Burns of Jeddo was examined by Lawyer Darrow and said her husband, who was an engineer inside the Markle mines, was killed under ground [sic], leaving her with four children, the oldest a boy of 8 years. The company never offered her a penny, but the employes [sic] gave her about $180 to defray the funeral expenses.
After her husband had been killed she moved from her four room house into one containing only two, the one above the other, and for the next six years she struggled as best she could to get along. She took in washing, scrubbed for the neighbors and once in a while she was given work cleaning the offices of the Markle company.
During these six years she said she kept her children at school. When the oldest child was 14 years old she sent him to work in the mines. At the end of the first month the boy brought home his wage statement showing that the mother owed $396 for back rent.
The boy's wages for the month had been taken off the bill and he came home open handed. She submitted to this and in the course of time her next boy was old enough to help earn a living and he, too, was sent to the colliery.
Boys' Wages Taken For Rent.
Like the older brother, the second boy received no pay, his earnings being deducted for rent. When the woman added that the money she earned for cleaning the Markle office was never given to her but kept by the company for rent, the commissioners looked at one another in surprise.
She said it took the three of them 13 years to make up the debt, the mother's earning from neighbors being the principal contribution toward the maintenance of the family. The debt was cleared last August. During the six years, from the time her husband was killed until the time when the first boy went to work, the company never asked her for rent.
The attorneys for the miners consumed the remainder of the afternoon session by presenting witnesses who had been employed by either the Delaware & Hudson company, the Temple Coal and Iron company or the Erie company, who testified that after the strike they were unable to get back their employment. This was done to shown that the companies were breaking part of the agreement by which the strike was ended and the commission appointed.
On cross-examination it was shown they had not been re-employed because they had refused to do other work. A carpenter refused to do a laborer's work during the strike; a fire boss declined to be sworn as a coal and iron policeman, another fire boss refused to perform the duties of a fireman and others refused to do certain kinds of work.
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| 1902 coal strike commissioners. |
A DIFFICULT PROBLEM
For Strike Commission to do Justice to All in Making Awards.
Scranton, Pa., Dec. 10.—The anthracite coal strike commission is today a more difficult problem in the matter of its award than over [sic]. Each day facing, because of the testimony which demonstrates a variant condition of affairs in the region, increases the difficulty of finding an award which will do justice to all. The commission at the beginning stated that no special submissions would be made and that those who were parties to the controversy would have to accept the one award. Testimony containing black charges against the Markle company has gone on the record unchallenged. The pitiable conditions testified to by the Markle miners has touched the members of the commission to the heart. These stories are not refuted. Counsel for Markle have not been present since last Saturday and the railroad companies are bitter today because they feel that the odium will be thrown upon them.
Testimony late yesterday and today concerned the larger railroad companies and was mainly adduced to show a blacklist. A vigorous cross examination showed that conditions were vastly different in these mines than in those belonging to the Markle company. The contrast between these conditions is wide and the commissioners admit this morning that their award must be extremely broad to do justice to all.
Counsel S. P. Wolverton of the Philadelphia and Reading this morning submitted statements of wages paid to contract miners and inside and outside laborers employed by the various coal companies of the railroad to the commission when the morning session opened. Alexander McVicker, a minor of Delaware & Hudson company, the first witness, said that shortly after his return to work he was put to work at a "heading,'' which a miner named Edward Lawler had refused to work. McVickar told the company he did not want to work a "heading" and wanted his old chamber back. He was discharged. Cross examination elicited the information that McVickar knew that Lawler would not work that "heading."
Operators' counsel left it to be inferred that the union boycotted certain chambers and "headings" and that McVickar was simply following an order. McVickar said he had no orders to boycott that "heading," in fact he said he never knew that there existed such a method of boycott.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
Substitute For Breach of Promise.
From Paterson, N. J., comes a new method of punishing recreant lovers. It appears that Miss Josephine Jerdoct was engaged to be married to Mr. Raymond Hopper, but the latter, for some reason which is not explained, finally decided that he did not wish to be the young lady's lord and master. He therefore broke the engagement and gave up the habit of calling at the Jerdoct home. The young lady might have sued him for breach of promise and exhibited his letters in court, but she didn't. She sent out invitations to her friends bidding them to attend her wedding on a certain evening, and when they arrived they found a large table spread with an effigy of the absent Mr. Hopper at its head.
At her suggestion her lady friends pulled the effigy's nose, the young men kicked it around the room, jokes were made concerning the thing, and it was subjected to all the indignities the lady and those who sympathized with her could think of. Finally, at the conclusion of the ceremonies, the stuffed man was flung out of the house, and Miss Jerdoct announced that diplomatic relations were ended forever between her and the one who had failed to fulfill his part of the transaction.
Miss Jerdoct's method is certainly unique and may well be recommended to young women placed in a similar position. It is comparatively cheap. It calls for no attorney's fees and involves no tiresome hours in stuffy courtrooms, while it furnishes more or less amusement for the aggrieved and her friends which she or they would not get if she took the case to court. While the recreant lover is not muleted in pecuniary damages, he will, if not utterly wanting in sensibility, be made to suffer in feeling by being held up to ridicule. On the whole, Miss Jerdoct's plan would seem to be an excellent substitute for a breach of promise suit.
ARSENIC FOUND.
Prof. Chamont's Report in the Case of Adam Kiehl.
RECEIVED BY CORONER SANTEE.
Says Organs Submitted to Him for Examination Contained Arsenic in Large Amounts—An Inquest will be Held Dec. 15 at Coroner Santee's Office.
Dr. E. M. Sautee has received the following report from E. M. Chamot of Cornell university, who has competed the examination of the viscera of William Kiehl, husband of Maude Kiehl, who was charged with giving her brother-in-law, Adam Kiehl, strychnine, but who was discharged after a hearing before Dr. Santee:
Ithaca, N. Y., Dec. 10, 1902.
Dr. E. M. Santee, Coroner Cortland Co., Cortland, N. Y.
Dear Doctor—The examination of the material submitted to me for analysis in the case of William Kiehl has given the following results:
The liver, kidneys, spleen, intestine and lungs received Nov. 5, 1902, all contain arsenic in large amount.
The comfortable received Nov. 17, 1902 contains also a relatively large amount of arsenic quite uniformly distributed throughout the whole fabric.
At your suggestion no analysis was made of the floor scrapings, etc., since such an examination seemed unnecessary in the light of the results obtained on the above mentioned material.
Respectfully yours, E. M. Chamot.
It is learned from Dr. Santee that the body of William Kiehl was not embalmed, consequently it cannot be said that the poison in the body of William resulted from the fluid used by an undertaker, as was claimed when poison was found in the viscera of his brother, Adam Kiehl. The doctor says that the undertaker went to the home of William Kiehl at the time of his death, but as it was extremely cold weather he decided not to embalm the body. The post mortem examination also revealed the fact that there was only one perforation of the body, and that was in the abdomen to let out the gases.
The comfortable that Prof. Chamot speaks of in his report is one that William Kiehl's sister, Mrs. Fred Shearar, sent to the Kiehl residence to place under her brother, who, it is said, vomited almost incessantly just before his death in February. This comfortable had been washed but, it is claimed, this would only tend to distribute the poison through the cotton lining of the comfortable.
Dr. Santee has decided to hold an inquest into the matter of the death of William Kiehl as a result of the chemist's report. The inquest is set down for Dec. 15 at Dr. Santee's office.
COURT ADJOURNED.
Motion to Reduce Term of Sentence of Gooding and Corcoran.
The motion to reduce the term in which S. N. Gooding and J. H. Corcoran should be kept within the jail limits was argued before Judge Eggleston this morning at the judge's chambers. Briefs will be submitted next Friday and a decision rendered. James Dougherty appeared in behalf of Gooding and Corcoran, and the motion was opposed by E. E. Mellon. County court was adjourned after the argument.
Died at Greene.
Mrs. H. S. Thompson, aged 59 years, 3 months and 20 days, died at her home in Greene, N. Y., on Thursday, Dec. 4, inst. Mrs. Thompson was a native of Cortland, where and in Homer she passed all of her life except the last ten years. In this vicinity she was better known as Miss Dorcas E. Kinney and was a sister of Mr. F. G. Kinney of this city.
Common Council.
The Cortland common council held an adjourned meeting last evening to make up the tax budget, but on account of the fact that the board of supervisors had not reported the amount of state and county tax to be raised no action was taken. The board adjourned until Friday night.
Horton-Jackson.
Mr. Ralph Horton and Mrs. Lulu Jackson, both of this city, were married at the First M. E. parsonage in Rochester by Rev. Charles E. Hamilton on Dec. 1. Mr. and Mrs. Horton will reside in Cortland.
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
Convened This Morning After Adjournment Last Saturday.
THE PREBLE APPEAL DECISION.
Contract With Onondaga County Penitentiary for Care of Prisoners—More Good Roads—Compensation of Clerk and Janitor for Session—Report of Committee in the Matter of Bonded Indebtedness.
The board of supervisors convened this morning at 10 o'clock after the adjournment of last Saturday. All were present except Mr. Chatterton.
The clerk read the decision of the state tax commissioners, which was published in full in Tuesday's Standard. A letter from the secretary of the state board stated that the decision was delayed a few days on account of the illness of one of the commissioners.
A communication from the superintendent of the Onondaga county penitentiary to the clerk of the board gave the information that the institution did not care to make a contract that would give any of the prisoners received the option of paying a line.
Upon motion of Mr. Kinyon the contract with the penitentiary authorities, providing for the payment of $2.10 a week for the maintenance of each prisoner sent to the penitentiary during the year 1903, was adopted.
A petition of the town board of Homer, asking that the highway between the north corporate line of the village of Homer, and running northerly to the south line of the town of Scott be improved, was received. This road is commonly known as the "Scott road," and is about 4 miles in length.
Upon motion of Mr. Bennett it was determined by the board that this road should be improved under the provision of the state good roads act.
Upon motion of Mr. Allen the Cortland Daily Standard and the Cortland Democrat were designated to publish the official canvass for the ensuing year, and the Cortland Semi-Weekly Standard and the Cortland Democrat were designated to publish the election notices for the same period.
Upon motion of Mr. Bennett the compensation of the clerk of the board for the session was fixed at $200.
Upon motion of Mr. Shuler the compensation of the janitor was fixed at $50 and $10 was allowed for extra work.
The committee that was appointed to determine if the towns that are bonded for railroads should receive such exemption in their assessments in the value of the bonded indebtedness reported that such towns are entitled to exemptions. Formerly there was a provision that such exemptions should be given for a period of thirty years, but by an act of the [state] legislature in 1898 the time limit was removed. No exemptions were given the towns of Cincinnatus, Cortlandville, Cuyler, Solon and Truxton, the bonded towns, last year upon the theory that the thirty years had expired. Upon motion of Mr. O'Donnell it was voted to refund to the five towns the amount due each that resulted from not including this matter in the report of the equalization committee of last year, and a committee was appointed to fix the amounts to be refunded.
The equalization committee reported this afternoon, and it is thought that an adjournment will be taken tomorrow.
BREVITIES.
—The fire board held its regular meeting last night. The bills for the month were audited.
—A regular meeting of the L. C. B. A. will be held this evening at 8 o'clock. A large attendance is desired.
—A regular meeting of the L. O. T. M. will be held tomorrow evening at 7:30 p. m., at which time the nomination and election of officers will occur.
—The new display advertisements today are—Pearson Bros. Big fire, smoke and water sale of furniture, page 8; W. W. Bennett, Sterling Oak stoves, page 5; Corner grocery, Flour sale, page 4.
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