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THE GEORGIAN’S NEWS BRIEFS
5
NEWS OF WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1913
REPUDIATES CONFESSION
THAT SHE SHOT HUSBAND
GAINESVILLE, July 22.—Repu-
diating her confession as to the shoot
ing of her ball player husband, Tom
Wood, and charging a man with fir
ing the bullet will be the sensational
testimony of Mrs. Pearl Thomas Wood
before the Hall County Grand Jury
this afternoon. This man comes from
a prominent family arid his arrest is
ending in the probably fatal wounding
of Wood.
Gainesville Is greatly excited over
the shooting. The statement this
morning that Mrs. Wood would com
pletely repudiate her confession and
charge the man with firing the shot
aroused intense interest. The Grand
expected.
This man was an old friend of Mrs.
Wood’s, and when she was told by
her husband that he was going to de
sert her, it is said, she appealed to
him. He came to the Wood home on
Athens street, where a quarrel began,
Jury is in session, and the Solicitor
announced this morning that an im
mediate investigation would be held.
At a local hospital Tom Wood lies
in a dying condition, a bullet hole in
one of his lungs and with but two
days at the most in which he can pos
sibly live. At the county jail is his
bride of a few months, completely
prostrated. Tuesday night ehe con
fessed to the killing, declaring that
she had determined to kill her hus
band rather thdn have him desert her.
She declared that he had decided upon
a separation and was preparing to
leave Gainesville.
According to the account of the
shooting, which, it is said, Mrs. Wood
will make to the Grand Jury, her hus
band, another man and herself were
in the Wood home when a quarrel en
sued, during which the other man
drew a pistol. Wood ran from the
house and as he darted out tne front
door the other man shot. Wood falling
fatally wounded upon the porch.
Neighbors rushed in and found
Mrs. Wood weeping over the body of
her youthful husband. An automo
bile was obtained and the wounded
man placed in it. Mrs. Wood accom
panied him to the hospital, holding
his head tenderly in her lap, while
her cries -drew the tears from others
in the machine. In contrast to her
piteous condition the husband
charged her time and again with
shooting him. His protestations that
“She shot me!” “She shot me!” con
tinued after he had been placed upon
the operating table.
A few moments after the wounded
man was taken to the hospital Sher
iff Spencer arrived there. Mrs. Wood
surrendered to him and admitted
that she had done the shooting. She
begged to be allowed to remain with
her husband, but owing to his con
dition and his continual charges that
she had done the shooting, it was
thought best to remove her. She
was taken to the county jail, where
she spent the night weeping and pit
eously declaring her love for her hus
band.
“He was preparing to desert me,
and was going away at midnight,”
she told the Sheriff. “He capie to the
house to tell me good-bye. I made
up my mind I would rather kill him
than have him desert me.”
Mrs. Wood is a bride of but a few
months. Wood has played with the
Gainesville ball club for a long while.
The courtship began a few months
ago, when he was introduced to her
at the ball park. She was Miss Pearl
Thomas, and comes from a highly re
spected family, which has been living
In Gainesville for ten years. She was
extremely popular and a host of her
friends called at the county jail this
morning.
GIVEN LIFE SENTENCE.
LEXINGTON, July 23—Andrew
Johnson, charged with being one of
the men who assassinated Ed Calla
han, former noted feudist of the
Breathitt County mountains, has
been found guilty at Winchester, Ky..
and given a life sentence.
Court immediately began the trial
of Fletcher Deaton, charged with
conspiracy in the assassination plot.
Eighteen more will be tried for the
actual murder, and twelve others for
perjury. These cases are expected to
consume five weeks. The feature evi
dence in each case is that of the wom
an who traced the murder plots or
who heard the conspirators plan the
murder.
WANTS INVESTIGATION.
Representative Connor, of Spald
ing County, Introduced a resolution in
the House to-day calling for a legis
lative investigation of the State Ag
ricultural College at Athens, particu
larly with respect to Dr. Andrew M.
Soule’s connection therewith.
Mr. Connor’s resolution recites the
fact that Dr. Sbule has been publicly
accused in The Southern Fancier-
Farmer, a poultry and agricultural
magazine, with having obtained a re
cent raise in salary upon false repre
sentations, and calls upon the Legis
lature to investigate the charge and
summon Dr. Soule before the Com
mittee on Appropriations to answer
the same.
BILL ON SEED COTTON.
A bill requiring all purchasers of
seed cotton to keep a complete rec
ord of the same has been introduced
in the House by Representatives
Hines and Moon, of Troup County.
In the last few weeks many com
plaints have been filed with the Com
missioner of Agriculture by farmers
who stated that seed cotton which
they had purchased under the highest
recommendations had proved to be
either of inferior quality or absolutely
worthless.
NURSE IS ARRESTED.
JOHNSTOWN. PA.. July 23.—Miss
Ella P. Behe, 23, a nurse, is in the coun
ty jail at Kbensburg. charged with
horsestealing. She was arrested near
Portage riding a horse taken from a liv
ery stable.
SUFFRAGE CAUSE HERE
BOOSTED BY BIG MEET
Spurred to enthusiasm by Mrs. er of the opposition, and even he de-
Mrs. M. C.
Hardin,
a prominent
worker
for suffrage
in Georgia.
William Peel, presiding officer, sev-
clared he had little faith in many of
eral hundred suffragists and a suf
fragette or two at Taft Hall Tuesday
participated in a monster meeting, in
many respects unequaled before in
Atlanta. Round after round of ap
plause marked th e efforts of every
speaker.
The meeting was an all-suffrage
affair, for although a debate was ad
vertised not a single out-and-out
anti-suffragist speech was made. Er
nest Neal, member of the House of
Representatives, was the only speak-
the stock arguments of the antis and
that he wished Mrs. Peel godspeed
in the present movement.
Among the other speakers were Dr.
A. M. Hughlett, w'ho declared he was
a suffragist first, last and all the time,
for the reason that women are as in
telligent as men; Mrs. S. E. Cunning
ham, who paid high tribute to the
cause; Mrs. Frances Whitesides, a
ieader in the Civic League; Mrs. Mary
McLendon, “the original suffragette,”
president of the Georgia League, Mrs.
M. C. Hardin and Dr. John E. White.
U. S. PREPARED TO ACT ON
SHORT NOTICE IN MEXICO
WASHINGTON, July 23—Dispatch
of a gunboat to Mexican waters, in
addition* to the four battleships al
ready there, the presence of Secretary
of War Garrison and General Leonard
Wood on the Texas border and the
summoning of Ambassador Henry
Lane Wilson to Washington are taken
to indicate the intention of official
circles here that the Mexican situa
tion will no longer be allowed by
President Wilson to drift.
Reports from Chihuahua and Coa-
huila indicate the centralization of
the Federalist forces in those prov
inces and the opening of railroad
communication from the capital to
the border within a week.
SENATE PASSES MEASURE
TO ENFORCE LIQUOR BILL
By a vote of 36 to 3 the Senate
Wednesday afternoon passed the Hix-
on-Searcy prohibition bill providing
for the enforcement of the Webb bill
in Georgia.
The bill makes it unlawful for any
firm or corporation to transport liq
uor into the State for illegal purposes
and places the burden of proof of
such legality upon the shipper when
quantities in excess of three gallons
are shipped.
It was around the three-gallon pro
vision as recommended in the Tem
perance Committee substitute that
the fight centered Wednesday morn
ing. .«
58 PERSONS LOSE LIVES
IN GREAT FACTORY FIRE
BINGHAMTON. N. Y.. July 23 —
Searching parties to-day worked in
the ruins of the building of the Bing
hamton Clothing Company seeking
bodies believed to be buried there.
Streams of water were played on
the building all night to cool them
enough to allow the rescue work to
begin. Workmen at daylight began
digging at the tons of charred timber,
brick and mortar, in an effort to reach
the bodies still known to be buried in
the debris.
At noon on Wednesday twenty-one
bodies had been recovered. The death
list will reach 58, it way estimated.
Ten injured are in a hospital. Of the
111 persons in the building at the
time the fire broke out only 38 es-
cajied. iTttirty-seven are missing.
Belief Qoat the alarm was sounded
only as a fire drill, caused the great
loss of life. When the girls and wom
en working in the factory realized
that the building was burning the
main avenue of escape had already
been cut off. Instantly the other ex
its were choked with panic-stricken
girls.
Many reached the windows but the
firemen and others bent on rescuing
inmates were powerless to aid them,
owing to the rapidity with which the
flames licked up the inflammable
mill material.
Eighteen minutes elapsed from the
time the fire broke out until the
walls fell and the building was in
ruins.
Reed B. Freeman, president of the
company, attributes the fire to the
carelessness of an employee in throw
ing a cigarette butt under a stair
way, where inflammable material was
stored.
Smoking was prohibited in the
building, but many employees were
addicted to the habit, according to
Freeman, and often went to th e alley
near the building to smoke.
Rigid investigation of the fire will
be made by the authorities. They
will investigate the charges made
that gasoline was stored in the build
ing, dangerously near the stairway
from the upper floors and that the
fire escapes were so exposed that
many victims were burned while try
ing to descend.
CONFER ON MEXICO.
WASHINGTON, July 23.—President
Wilson to-day summoned Represen
tative Flood, chairman of the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
Senator Bacon, chairman of the Sen
ate Foreign Relations Committee, to
the White House to confer on condi
tions in Mexico.
The delicacy of the present situa
tion enforced a policy of secrecy at
the White House, but It was asserted
that the purpose of to-day’s confer
ence was to discuss the advisability
of removing the ban from shipments
of arms and ammunition to the con
stitutionalists in Northern Mexico.
General Carranza and other revolu
tionists have been pleading for weeks
for the removal of this prohibition,
claiming that they are entitled to the
same privileges accorded to the Ma-
derists by President Taft.
it is doubtful if any decisive move
will be made until after the removal
of Ambassador Wilson, but it is prac
tically certain that this Government
will favor the removal of the prohi
bition relative to the shipment of
arms to the rebels and then will await
developments in the hope of estab
lishing a stable government in Mex
ico.
DR. FRIEDMANN SCORED.
Bitter arraignment of Dr. Franz
Friedrich Friedmann, the German
scientist and discoverer of a serum
hailed as a curative of tuberculoses,
followed the death of Austell Thorn
ton, one of the best-known young
bankers in Atlanta, near Asheville,
N. C., early Wednesday morning.
Thornton’s death was the result of
tuberculosis, which set in following
an attack of pneumonia eighteen
months ago. When Dr. Friedmann
came to this country last winter with
his serum, heralded as a cure for con
sumptives, Thornton went . to New
York and underwent the treatment.
While Dr. Friedmann used tho
Bellevue Hospital there in demon
strating his cures, he also did a great
deal of work in hotels among patients
who flocked to Manhattan from all
over the United States.
Thornton received his injections at
the hotel where he was stopping, and
it is said that Dr. Friedmann himself
administered them. It is also declared
that the German physician charged
young Thornton a fabulous price for
the treatment, one person Wednesday
morning placing the sum at $3,500.
BALKAN STATES AGREE.
SOFIA, July 23.—It was stated of
ficially to-day that Servia and Greece
have agreed to Roumania’s proposal
to discuss an armistice with Bulga
ria. The preliminary discussion will
be held at Nish.
In an official note to Sofia to-day
Roumanla Insists that she be allowed
to retain strategetic position on the
frontier; that specified privileges
shall be extended to the Roumanian
population in Macedonia and that the
peace negotiations shall be opened in
Roumanian territory after an armi
stice has been .signed.
HOME FOR SPINSTERS.
YORK. PA., July 23.—The will of
Miss Anna L. Gardner, which was
probated here, sets aside $400,000 for
the erection and maintenance of a
home in this city for aged unmarried
women of Pennsylvania.
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