STRANGE STORIES FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 166, 13 July 1907, Page 13

STRANGE STORIES FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.

ZION TO BE SOLD UP. If anyone wants to buy a r city they will more than likely soon have the opportunity, for Mr. Voliva, who succeeded the "Prophet" Dowie as leader in Zion City, declares that unless he receives the support of all the factions in the place he will declare the city bankrupt, and have it sold by auction. Mr. Voliva says that high officials of the society are "out for graft," and the various sects are striving for supremacy. He has expelled several members of the Church cabinet, and is doing his beet to purge the city of corruption. Mr. Voliva is being opposed by a certain section headed by a deacon, named Speicher, and nightly meetings are held by the opposing factions. KILLED BY A BEAR. An Englishman named Wilson, of ManChester, was killed and eaten by a black bear at a lumber camp a few miles west ol Etiomami. Wilson was preparing supper for his mates, when the bear swam the river and ran towards a group of four lumbermen who were sitting on a fallen tree smoking. They ran towards their hut with the bear in hot pursuit.

One of them suddenly slipped, but the bear's attention was diverted by the Bring of a revolver by another of the men. The bear thereupon resumed its pursuit. Wilson, who heard the shot, ran out of the hut and met tlie infuriated bear, which attacked him immediately. Although unarmed, Wilson made a valiant struggle to escape, but the bear finally broke his neck, and partly devoured him. The other lumbermen fired ten shots without any imperceptible effect, and the animal finally abandoned the mutilated body and disappeared in the forest. END OF RENOWNED CRIMINAL LAW FIRM. Abraham Hummel, as we have already announced, has gone to Blackwell's Island to serve 12 months' imprisonment in gaol for subornation of perjury. The passing of "Little Abe," as everybody knew him. marks the end of the firm of Howe and Hummel, renowned in the criminal history of New York as the shrewdest pair of lawyers who ever cooperated to cheat the gallows and the prison-cell. The world's third metropolis has lost one of its famous institutions. In 1870 "Habeas Corpus Howe," as he was nicknamed, took Abe Hummel, his former office-boy, into partnership. Howe, who was an .englishman, was an ex-convict with a big, loudvoiced manner. He wore preposterous clothes, a gold-braided yachting cap, and a red cravat, the whole outfit being ablaze with diamonds.

The junior partner was a dapper little man with a big head, scrupulously quiet, and the embodiment of politeness and good breeding. When Howe died in 1902, the Records Office showed that the pair had nearly 700 murderers as clients. No celebrated divorce suit -was filed in New York for nearly a generation without the rirrn jpp<arins- either for the petitioner, the respondent, or the co-respondent. Both men wrre students of human nature as well as consummate lawyers. While Hummel was conducting a merciless cross-examina-tion, Ilcwe, in an adjo nmg seat, would wipe copious, tears from his eyes with a gorgeous silt handkerchief. Abe Hummel, it will be recalled, was a prominent figure in the Thaw trial. FORTY "sIEARS IN TROTJSERS. OLD LADY RETURNS TO SKIRTS. After having worn" ma elattire for 40 years in an attempt to get other women to do likewise, Mrs. Thomas Rijon, of Jersey City, publicly admits that her campaign is a lamentable failure, and now, in her 60th year, she resumes the conventional garb of her sex. iirs. Rijon (says a New York correspondent) was a plump, handsome little "woman when she first appeared as a dress reformer, with close-cropped hair, and wearing a black coat, black trousers, and back sloucu hat. At that time her husband, Jlr. Tom Rijon, who is well known to the literary wcrld, started a paper devoted to woman's dress reform, and while Mr. Rjjon wrote articles on many different reasons why women should wear trousers, his wife, dressed in male attire, took her stand before St. Paul's Church, New York, and sold his paper. The police arrested her, but slit convinced them that she could wear what she chose, and they let h;r s* Her Husband's paper died soon, and the Rijons *cnt to Jersey City, where Mrs. Rijon kept up the fight, and went from place to place lecturing. She has been arrested by the police more than a hundred times for appearing in men's clothes, but ea-ch time convinced the jndge that there is nothing in the law to prevent her wearing what she liked. Mrs. Rijon failed even to persuade her two daughters to wear man's attire, and her sons refused to live under the same roof with hex. Though defeated, and admitting that she had lived probably a fuU generation ahead cf her sex in dress matters, Mrs. Rijon announces that as a matter of principle she will twice a year parade New York's leadIn? tnoronghfare wearing trousers as of yore. CAR CODDCTOR'S ROMANCE. There was concluded in New York on Friday, May 24, a. remarkable case which has been occupying attention for the past three months. John Bell, a Brooklyn tram conductor, was sentenced to death for shooting Dr. Townsend in Flatbush, a suburb of Brooklyn, at the end of January. The tragedy originated in a romance of the tramcar, for while Bell was working as conductor a beautiful girl frequently rode on his car. She was the daughter of wealthy people, but the love he developed for his "fare" was reciprocated, and they eloped and were married. Her family absolutely cut her off, and the couple went to live humbly in Flatbush. A few months later she fell ill, and Dr. Townsend attended her. In spite of every care she died, and Eell brooded constantly over his loss. He became possessed with the idea that the doctor had treated his wife wrongly, and uad caused her death. This preyed upon his mind, till one night Dr. Toxvnsend was shot by a masked man who broke into his bedroom- Next day Bell was arrested :is the murderer, the doctor having indicate.! him as the only man who had a grudge against him. Doctors were of opinion that Bell was at least temporarily iiisane after the loss of his wife, but the man's friends believed that there had been a mistake in identity, and called witnesses to show that he was innocent. After one of the quickest trials in American criminal records, the prisoner was given an opportunity to address the jury on his town behalf. With a calmness that astonished the Court, he rose and faced the jury box. Then with a tone full of scorn, he said slowly, "I am no Harry Thaw, and I have no money." The situation was dramatic, and the bitterness in the tone of the prisoner made a sensation, but the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the sentence followed. It must be added that public opinion is on the eide of the prisoner when the contrast is made between the method oi tiis case and tie circumstances of the trial jiad, taos» at the .case tf a*"Z £J"fl&