The Meridian Tribune (Meridian, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 28, Ed. 1 Friday, December 6, 1935 Page: 6 of 8
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PAGE TWO
THE MERIDIAN TRTBUNE
FLOYD GIBBONS
Adventurers' Club
"The Dead Patient'9
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter.
URSES lead an adventurous life. Adventure is always just
around the corner for them—on their next case. Mrs. Mar-
g"ai et Sweeney tells us today of the most thrilling case she ever
had, and it's a pip.
When this happened," she writes, "I was looking for ad-
ventures and thrills. I was just a prosaic nurse, nearing thirty,
faced with the problem of earning a living."
Can you imagine a prosaic nurse? I can't. I think their very uni-
forms suggest adventure. But let's go along with Mrs. Sweeney on her
strange "case."
It happened out in California in 1911. Mrs. Sweeney and a
nurse friend of hers had just gone there for a chance of climate.
They registered at a nurses' registry in Los Angeles and were
placed "on call."
It rained that night—California papers please copy—but the rains do
not stop the mails or nurses and Mrs. Sweeney got her call. A Mrs.
Weldon of Pasadena, the head nurse told her, was suffering from an in-
fected hand. Her chauffeur would call for the nurse and bring her to
the patient's home.
Car's Speed Arouses No Suspicions in Nurse.
D.he ear arrived—pretty quickly to come all the way from Pasadena
but Mrs. Sweeney saw nothing strange in that, A uniformed chauffeur
sat in the driver's seat. She took her nurse's bag—always [racked for an
emergency and started to climb into the rear of the big limousine.
"Get up in front," the chauffeur said gruffly.
The nurse did as she was told, and as the big car slid away
into the night looked her driver over curiously. He was a big,
bulky, rough-looking man with a broken nose and a cold air of
authority that belied his uniform.
Once out of traffic, the car sped on into the night, and soon reached
the lights of Pasadena. During that half-hour run, Mrs. Sweeney says,
wmmmmmmm
r\
3
II
Friday, December 8, 1935*
Here's Chic Frock That
Will Slenderize Figure
PATTERN C.--16
Entry of Major Anderson's Command Into Fort Sumter, Christmas Night, 1860. Inset: Maj. Robert Anderson.
Mrs. Sweeney Looked at the Figure on the Cot.
the driver had not spoken a word. She began to have a strange feeling
of uneasiness when he crossed the town without stopping and headed
out toward the mountains.
Mrs. Sweeney Really Learns Meaning of Fear.
"Fear," Mrs. Sweeney says, "gripped me with a feeling of nausea,
Furtive glances at the man's profile showed me a young, grim, hard-
mouthed face that suggested the hardened criminal."
H'iding her anxiety, Mrs. Sweeney says, she gathered up her
courage and tried to speak casually.
"I understood," she said, "that Mrs. Weldon lived in Pasadena
and—"
"You understand all wrong," he cut in roughly. "It's Mister
Weldon and he's at my joint in the hills."
Afraid to speak again and now petrified with fear, the nurse sat
quietly as the big car turned off the main road and jolted along a rough
path through the foothills. The man turned off the lights and drove
recklessly in and out of the trees through the pitch darkness of the rainy
night. Before a rough-looking hut he stopped and almost dragged the
nurse out of the car.
This Patient Was Beyond Nurse's Aid.
Inside the hut an oil lamp sputtered on the table. The furnishings
were a dim blur. As Mrs. Sweeney's knees shook under her, the man
grabbed the oil lamp and led the way to a smelly room off the kitchen.
On a cot in a corner she could see a figure. The man held the lamp over
the cot and then spat out a blasphemy.
"Lcoks like he's croaked," he growled.
Mrs. Sweeney's training overcame her fear and she looked at
the figure on the cot. It was that of a young man. One arm was
bandaged, but the eyes were wide open and staring—the mouth
sagging in the unmistakable signs of death.
"Yes, he's dead," she said, and then her terror of the strange person
who had brought her returned. She felt now that she was dealing with
a dangerous criminal—perhaps he had killed the man on the cot—and
perhaps, she reasoned, she herself was now an unwanted witness.
This Was No Place to Hang Around.
"Shall we be going?" she asked nervously. "It's too late to do any-
thing for your friend."
The man's small eyes looked at her coldly. She wondered what was
going on in that obviously distorted mind. Without a word he pulled off
his chauffeur's coat and placed a heavy revolver on the table.
"I need you," he said. "Better stick around a few days."
Mrs. Sweeney says her heart was in her mouth.
"Heat up a little coffee," she heard him say, and she was glad of
the chance to go into the kitchen and do something. She asked no ques-
tions and tlie man volunteered no Information. She made the coffee and
they drank it and smoked countless cigarettes throughout the long night.
A Faint Saves Mrs. Sweeney's Life.
As the man scowled at the ceiling thoughtfully, the nurse cleaned up
the greasy place as well as her pounding heart Would let her.
The end came suddenly. The man took his revolver and went
out the door, after her bag in the car. As he stepped outside a
fusillade of shots shattered the silence of the early dawn and Mrs.
Sweeney had reached the end of her endurance. She slipped to
the floor in a dead faint.
And it was on the floor that the police officers found her. It was
lucky, they said, that she had fallen before the deadly fire raked through
the walls of the hut. They did not know who she was and intended to
kill everyone in that hut—just as the murderers who were uow both dead
—had done to their victims the week before!
Imagine saying that a nurse's life is prosaic!
WNU Service.
Jeered First Umbrella
in Seventeenth Century
The umbrella, as we now know
It, was probaoly eastern in origin.
One can see it pictured in the
sculptures of Nineveh and Assyria,
and it was not unknown in early
India.
In ancient Rome, the umbrella
was used by women and effeminate
men as a screen from the sun.
The umbrella was introduced into
England early in the Seventeenth
century and became fashionable
among the aristocracy and the
wealthy.
The lirst man who ventured to
appear in the streets of London
with an umbrella was Jonas Han-
ways, says a writer in Pearson's
Weekly. He returned to London
from Persia, in delicate health, and,
according to a contemporary dei
scription, "a parapluie defended his
face and wig." He was subjected
to considerable abuse.
As late as 17S4, Couper, in de-
scribing the rising popularity of the
umbrella, mentions that its adop-
tion by the lower classes was suf-
ficiently novel to call for comment.
In many large towns in Britain
the name is known of the first cit<
izen courageous enough to appear
sheltered by an umbrella in the
streets of his native town. In Ed-
inburgh he was a physician named
Spens; in Glasgow, a surgeon named
John Jameson who, when traveling
on the continent in 1S71, noted the
use of the umbrella in Paris and
brought one home with him to Glas-
gow. He used it, much to the won-
derment and admiration of his fel-
lows.
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
ECEMBEIi 25, 1S60, was one of the
most fateful Christmases in the his
tory of the United States. On that
night 75 years ago a little force of
soldiers stole quietly out of a fort,
located on a sandy island outside an
Atlantic seaport, entered boats and
silently rowed across the water to
the shelter of another fort in the
middle of the entrance to the har-
bor. Although their commander had
a perfect right to lead his garrison
from one fortification to the other,
this move was fraught with the most serious
consequences
For he was Robert Anderson, major of the
First artillery of the United States army; the
post which he evacuated was Fort Moultrie and
the one he entered was Fort Sumter in the har-
bor of Charleston, S. C. Four months later a
shot went screaming across the water of that
harbor and when it struck Fort Sumter's brick
walls it set 2.000,000 Americans against each
other in the greatest civil war in history.
* * *
The story - of the ; tiring on Fort ■ Sumter, the
curtain-raiser to the drama of the War Between
the States, is a familiar one to most Americans,
for it is found in every school history ever pub
Jished. But the story of the events on that fate-
ful Christmas night, which led inevitably to the
opening of hostilities in April, 1SG1, is not so
well known.
Robert Anderson was a Kentuckian who had
been graduated from West Point in 1825. He
had served with distinction in two Indian wars
—the Black Hawk uprising in Illinois in 1S32
and the campaigns against the Seminoles in
Florida later—and was promoted to captain in
1841. Subsequently he served as assistant ad-
jutant-generai to Oen. Winfield Scott, was severe-
ly wounded in the attack on El Molino del Key
i«i the Mexican war and promoted to major in
1857.
When he took command of the United States
military post of Charleston harbor on November
20, 18(50, the dispute over slavery between the
North and the South had drifted inevitably into
the question of the right of a state to secede
from the Union and he found himself in the hot-
bed of the Secession movement—South Carolina.
That state's withdrawal from the Union seemed
certain and when it did withdraw it was almost
a certainty also that the South Carolinians would
seize all United States property within the bor-
ders of their state. In so-far as Anderson was
a native of one slave state and connected by
marriage with the people of another, it was
hoped by some that he would hand over the
forts, which had been entrusted to him, to the
South Carolinians, and it was feared by others
that he would resign his commission and join the
Secessionists. But, as later events proved,
neither side understood the true character of
the man.
Ten days before the South Carolina conven-
tion took the final step of severing the bonds
of that state with her sister states in the Union,
Anderson busied himself strengthening the de-
fenses of both Fort Moultrie, which he had gar-
risoned. and Fort Sumter, which was also under
his Command. His force was a small one. It
consisted of nine officers, 55 artillerymen, 15
musicians and 80 laborers—a total of 101), of
which only 6'i were combatants. With this little
band he determined to defend the flag to which
he had sworn allegiance and to maintain his
post to the last.
Watchful of all approaches to Fort Moultrie,
after December 11 no one was admitted within
the works unless he was known to some officer
of the garrison. His justification for this action
was the fact that the South Carolinians were
arming and it seemed almost a certainty that
they intended ro seize Forts Moultrie and Sumter
and Castle Pinckney. On December 20 South
Carolina adopted its Ordinance of Secession and
the South Carolinians immediately began to aci
as though they were free citizens of another
country. In fact, the Charleston papers, as an
indication of the independence of their state,
began announcing occurrences in tlie Northern
states under the head of "foreign news." Soon
volunteer troops began to pour into Charleston
where their equipping and drilling began.
Anderson was well aware of the danger and
delicacy of his position. In a private letter which
he wrote on December 24 he set forth the pre-
carious nature of his position—with a garrison
of only GO men, in an aged fortress, the walls of
which were only 14 feet high and within a hun-
dred yards of sandhills which commanded the
position and afforded good cover for sharpshooters
to pick off his gunners, he confessed that "if
attacked in force by any one but a simpleton,
there Is scarce a possibility of our being able to
hold out long enough for our friends to come to
our succor."
9
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor
Gen. Winffeid Scott, commander-in-chief of the
United States army, was also aware of the situ-
ation and declared that the fort could be taken
by 500 men in 24 hours. Both President Bu-
chanan and John B. Floyd, secretary of war,
were In a state of uncertainty as to what course
to pursue in this crisis.
Their instructions to Anderson were to "care-
fully avoid any act which would needlessly pro-
voke aggression and not, without necessity, to
take any position that could be construed into
the assumption of a hostile attitude." They did,
however, direct him to "hold possession of the
forts in the harbor, and if attacked, you are to
defend yourself to the last extremity. The small-
ness of your force will not permit you, perhaps,
to occupy more than one of the three forts, but
an attack on, or attempt to take possession of
either of them, will be regarded as an act of
hostility, and you may then put your command
into either of them which you may deem most
proper to increase its power of resistance. You
are also authorized to take similar steps when-
ever you have tangible evidence of a design to
proceed to a hostile act."
It was that last sentence in his Instructions
which gave Anderson the necessary latitude for
making the move which he did. According to a
contemporary historian: "Christmas day dawned
upon Major Anderson under these circumstances
and bound by these instructions. It may be sup-
posed that he was not in a festive mood: but,
whatever his apprehensions or his purposes, he
kept them to himself. . . .
'During the day, the wives and children of the
troops were sent away from the fort on the plea
that, as an attack might be made upon it, their
removal was necessary. Three small schooners
were hired, and the few inhabitants of Sullivan's
island saw them loaded, as they thought, with
beds, furniture, trunks and other luggage of that
kind.
About nine o'clock in the evening, the men
were ordered to hold themselves in marching
order, with knapsacks packed, ready to move at
If you've large proportions to cope
with, yet aspire to a slender figure,
you'll love this house frock wbiclff
breaks lines in ju^t the right places.
Four easy pieces are its sum total
of chic, one back, one front, and one
for each sleeve. Don't you love the
diagonal rows of buttons at the
shoulder, just where they're needed
for inexpensive decoration? Pointed
belt-ends nip in your waist, and a
wide, square neck makes this frock
a jiffy, over-the-header. You've ail
the novelty cottons to choose from,
so hurry, send for your pattern to-
day !
Pattern 9546 may be ordered only
In sizes 14, 16, 18, 20, 32, 34, 36, 38,
40, 42, 44 and 46. Size 16 requires
3% yards 36 inch faliric. Complete
diagrammed sew chart included.
Send FIFTEEN CENTS in coins
or stamps (coins preferred) for this
pattern. Be sure to write plainly
your NAME, ADDRESS, STYLE
NUMBER and SIZE.
Send your order to The Sewing
Circle Pattern Dept., 232 West Eight-
eenth St., New York, N. Y.
J&Mf
o tg?
fXSHUTES FOLLY
Ni/ISLAND
Castle Pinckncy
Ft, Moultrie
Ft.Sumter
CHARLESTON
::'harbor
a moment's notice. No one seemed to know the
reason for the movement, and probably no one
but Major Anderson himself and his next in
command knew their destination. The little
garrison was paraded. Inspected and then em
barked on boats which headed for Fort Sumter.
"The schooners had taken, or ihen took, all
the provisions, garrison furniture and munitions
of war which could be carried away on such
short notice, and with such slender means of
transportation—enough to enable fourscore men
A Fort Moultrie Cannon.
(Fort Sumter in the Distance.)
to sustain and defend themselves in a strong,
sea-girt fortress for a long time. What could
not be carried away was destroyed. Not a keg
of powder or a cartridge was left in the maga-
zine; the small arms and military supplies of
all kinds were removed; the guns were spiked,
the gun-carriages burned, and the guns thus dis-
mounted; partly-finished additions and altera-
tions of the work were destroyed; the flag-staff
was cut down; and nothing, in fact, was left un-
harmed but the round shot which were too heavy
to carry off, and which the spiking and dismount-
ing of the guns had made useless.
"The dawn saw Major Anderson safely estab-
lished with his command in Fort Sumter, secure
from immediate attack, though Fort Moultrie was
occupied only by a corporal's guard, left there
to complete the work of destruction. He saw
what a responsibility he had assumed, and fully
appreciated the delicacy and the importance of
the trust committed to him. Perhaps, if he could
have looked forward for three months and fore-
seen all the consequences of his act during that
period, he would have remained at Fort Moultrie
until summoned to yield by a force too great for
him to resist, or until he received orders to yield
his post."
* * •
Although Anderson and his men must have real-
ized the extreme gravity of the situation in
\Vhich this move had placed them, this Christmas
season was probably a happier one than they
or any of their fellow-Americans, both North and
South, were to know for the next four years.
Despite the fact that South Carolina had seceded
from the Union and that other southern states
were ready to follow her lead, there was still
the possibility that the threatened war might be
averted. No doubt, in many a church and in
many a home, both North and South, during that
Christmas season 75 years ago, there were of-
fered up prayers that the spirit of "peace on
earth, good will to men" would prevail and save
the nation from the horrors of a civil conflict.
But forces which no one seemingly could con-
trol were at work in both the North and the
South to push both sections forward to the holo-
caust and in April, 1861, the decisive step was
taken. It was taken at I1 ort Sumter and it was
the logical result of the events of that fateful
Christmas night 75 years ago. Gen. P. T. Beaure-
gard, commander of the Confederate forces In
Charleston, called upon Major Anderson to sur-
render Fort Sumter. Anderson refused and the
Southern batteries opened fire. By the time an-
other Christmas had come hundreds of American
boys had died and thousands more were to die
before the Christmas bells were to ring out again
their mesrage of peace and good-will over a re-
united nation.
© Western Newspaper Union.
Fragrancy, Your Honor
Paul Pearsey, an Indianapolis po-
liceman, led a frowsy looking indi-
vidual into police headquarters. The
d°sk sergeant prepared to"bock him.
"What's the charge—vagrancy?" he
asked. Pearsey shook his head
"Fragrancy," he replied, taking 16
bottles of perfume and three boxes
of face powder from the prisoner's
pockets.
Be sure of Success
And bake
that Holiday
Cake
with the
famous
Childhood a Guide
Childhood shows the man, as
morning shows the day.—Milton.
RADIANT HEAT
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•
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This fine new Coleman heater brings
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See 1 our Loca I Dealer}.— or write net
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L VMP AND STOVE CO.
j Wichita, Kane.; Chicago 111 1
Philadelphia, Pa.) Loe Angelea, Calif. ?&A)0j
A
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The Meridian Tribune (Meridian, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 28, Ed. 1 Friday, December 6, 1935, newspaper, December 6, 1935; Meridian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth341915/m1/6/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Meridian Public Library.