Lyon County Times

PURE "CUSSEDNESS."

About a week ago an item appeared in the TIMES which stated, in effect, that Harry Fontecilla, (who had just come in from Bodie) had no confidence in the future of that camp. The opinion was expressed by Mr. Fontecilla in conversation with the foreman and a compositor of the TIMES, and in the following words:

Mr. Fontecilla: Silver is dull now; but it will liven up soon. Wait till Bodie plays out.

"Is Bodie going to play out?"

"Yes; they haven't found a ledge of any size there yet."

A couple of days afterward the Virginia Chronicle published an article headed "Justice to the Bodie Mines," in which the following sentence occurred:

Mr. Fontecilla informs the Chronicle that he never authorized the statement published in the TIMES, and does not claim to know anything about the ledges of Bodie.

Last Saturday Mr. Fontecilla called at the TIMES office to make an explanation. He said that the publication of the "correction" in the Chronicle, was not at his request. Last Thursday E. L. Colnon, a reporter for that paper, stopped him on C street, and, after a general conversation about Bodie, referred to the TIMES item, whereupon he (Fontecilla) informed Colnon that he did not claim to be an expert, and that his opinion of mines was of no value. Mr. Colnon thereupon rushed off, and procured the insertion of the "correction."

The item which originally appeared in the TIMES was inserted because of the local interest attaching to it. Mr. Fontecilla finished his apprenticeship in this office, and his parents still reside in this city. He is a steady worker, and a first-class printer. The Chronicle's "correction," it seems, is due solely to the innate meanness of Mr. Colnon, who succeeded this scribe as mining reporter for the Chronicle a few months after he (this scribe) purchased the TIMES. We would therefore, respectfully but firmly, suggest to Mr. Colnon that he spare less of his valuable time to the TIMES, and that he devote more to the collection and preparation of important news items of general interest about the Comstock mines. The Chronicle has been sadly behind its local contemporaries, in this respect, for some time past, and unless there is an improvement soon, it will lose what reputation it ever had as a mining authority.