The Fairmont West Virginian

THE FAIRMONT WEST
VIRGINIAN
Peoples
Forum
WASTED TALENT
HOULT, NOV-TRH
Editor West Virginian:
Did you know that Fairmont can
boast a literary genius who is surely
wasting his talent in so small a town.
Casting his wonderful literary pearls
before swine, so to speak, for to judge
by remarks we have heard they are
not appreciated hereabouts. He should
be on the staff of some yellow journal,
The Police Gazette or The Saturday
Blade, for instance.
We are referring to the reporter who
wrote up the wonderful story of the
accident to a team and driver near
Hoult as printed in Friday's Times.
Oh, it was a thriller and all it needed
was a few words of truth to make
it as fine a bit of newspaper realism
as ever we saw.
Beginning with thrilling headlines
a half inch tall and half column of
sub-headings announcing "FELL OVER
40 FOOT PRECIPICE WITH TWO
HORSES UPON HIM New York Man
Had Miraculous Escape from Death
on Road Near Hoult-Team Frightened
at Road Machine and Backed
Over Bank-Bonnett Escaped With
Badly Fractured Leg-Was Brought to
Local Hospital." This literary genius
who should be dramatic editor of a
metropolitan paper then proceeded to
"tale unfold" which for realistic lan-
guage and dramatic wordpicturing
would make Crane or Wellman green
with envy. He tells how two New
York representatives of the American
Tobacco Company with two horses
and a "specially made wagon of their
company" started to bill the country
between Hoult and Montana, passing
near Hoult along a road "bounded on
one side by a perpendicular ledge of
rock and on the other by a precipice
at least forty feet deep." (Yosemite or
Colorado canyon not in it a little bit)
the horses got scared at a "stone
crusher" in operation and backed the
vehicle over the bank.
Now comes the thrilling part. Mr.
Bonnett tried without avail to extri-
cate himself, could not do so and the
horrified "road men" saw the appa-
rently dead man buried beneath an
avalanche of vehicle and struggling
horses (thrills!). Bonnett's companion
arrives and he and the "road men"
rush to the unfortunate man's assist-
ence. Oh, it is a sickening sight to
see the
wreckage
and struggling
horses piled on top of the man who
was apparently dead.
(More thrills
and your hair raises your hat up here)
It is sad to note that the horses were
attended to first and after so long a
time the unconscious man was re-
moved to a nearby house.
We were
much relieved on reading thus far
to find that the man "was still breath-
ing." Then he says "Brandy was ad-
ministered and he returned to con-
sciousness." We were glad to learn
that the horses escaped but the ve-
hicle "was completely demolished."
The article states that the man is in
Cook's Hospital suffering from a com-
pound "structure" of the leg. Now
we don't know what a compound
"structure" is, but judging from the
rest of the article it must be some-
thing just fearfully-awful.
Now we are glad to testify to some
truth in this article. There was a
team backed over the embankment
and the driver had a leg fractured;
all the rest was the results of a very
vivid imagination. As the writer was
present and the only person there
when it occurred (being "road ma-
chine" "stone crusher" and gang
of "road men" all in one) we speak with
authority.
Well Fritz has often been accused
of having "wheels" but we had no idea
we were both a road machine and a
stone crusher.
Undoubtedly the
Dutchman is "some pumpkins."
Now seriously the real story is that
Mr. Alfred Bonnett and Mr. Arthur
H. McSloy, representing the Finzer
Tobacco Company, makers of Five
Brothers tobacco, was billing along
the road. At this point the road is
in bad shape, very rough. It is bound-
ed on one side by Ed Hoult's pasture
fence and on the other by a ravine,
the side about 45 degrees steep and
forty feet deep. The writer was try-
ing to do what the road authorities
should have done--remove some large
limestone boulders. The team got rest-
less probably seeing the freshly brok-
en stone at the side of the road and
backed over. I felt sure Mr. Bonnett
would be seriously injured or killed
and started to rush to his aid. Be-
fore I had descended halfway to him
he had extricated himself from the
wreckage and standing on one foot,
said he believed one leg was broken
and asked if I would go tell his com-
panion. I did so and also summoned
more help from Hoult.
Mr. Bonnett was carried to Mr. C.
B. Satterfield's and left in care of Mr.
McSloy and then we went back,
some four or five of us, and extricat-
ed the horses after the man had been
attended to. Mr. Bonnett was not un-
conscious a moment and showed much
grit.
The wagon as well as the team be-
longed to Mr. Irwin, the liveryman, and
the wagon was little hurt except the
top crushed off.
Say, "Well what can one believe that
he sees in a newspaper?" It is any wonder that many people
say that?
Such arti-
cles tend to discredit honest news-
papers.
We have good reasons for believing
that a representative of the Times
came down after everything was re-
moved, interviewed none, but looked
the ground over, imagined it all and
drew on his fertile imagination for
the whole story.
As to the brandy administered to re-
vive the "unconscious" man nobody
knows anything about it. Of course
brandy, we know, is the most impor-
tant drug in the Times' pharmacopoeia
but we believe that all the brandy
used in the case was that which the
reporter drank to give him nerve to
spin his wonderful tale.
FRITZ.
Let a little "Want Ad" work for you
CLASSIFIED. Your ad of a furnished
room meets the probable tenant
half way