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Friday, March 6, 2020

N.C. State News Briefs, March 5, 1920

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 5, 1920

N.C. State News. . . A Digest of Everything Worth Knowing About Old North State Folks and Things

--Reports from many sections of North Carolina indicate that the influenza epidemic is definitely beginning to wane, though there are still fairly high daily totals reported from many counties in which the disease was late in reaching the epidemic stage.

--Having been divorced for the past 18 years, William D. Milliken of Chicago and Mrs. Mary Milliken of Raleigh decided Monday to try life again. The bridegroom said that in all the years of separation he had been unable to find a woman who suited him quite so well as his first love.

--One attack of influenza is all that a person can have, if incomplete reports and observations made in many parts of the State bear the test of more rigid and searching tests, according to Dr. F.M. Register, epidemiologist of the State Board of Health, but this is darn little encouragement to those who haven’t had it yet.

--Running amuck in his nightrobe, an influenza patient crazed with fever caused considerable excitement in Wilson several days ago. It was later learned that the poor fellow had locked and barricaded his door, and jumped out of the window under the impression that four armed men were trying to kill him.

--For the third best yield of lint cotton per acre in the United States, William Peterson of Sampson County, North Carolina, has been awarded a bronze medal and a cash price of $250 by the Farm Journal of Philadelphia, Pa. Eighteen prizes were given by the publication. Peterson’s yield was 1,040.87 pounds of lint cotton per acre, as compared with a record of 1,360.29 pounds for the winner of the first prize, a Georgia boy.
--Holding that there was no error in the proceedings of the lower court, the State Supreme Court upheld the verdict of $18,000 damaged awarded to the heirs of D.C. Goff, who was killed by an Atlantic Coast Line train will crossing the tracks in an automobile near Rocky Mount several months ago. The railroad company appealed on the grounds that there was no evidence of contributory negligence and that the deceased was guilty of contributory negligence.

--Four white farmers, armed with shot guns, held a crowd of armed negroes at bay on a plantation in Lenoir County several days ago while officers carried to a place of safe keeping Haywood Metts, colored prospective victim of the proposed lynching bee. Metts had shot and killed another negro a few hours before, and had out-distanced the colored mob in a race as spectacular as anything ever pulled off in a wild-west movie drama. Metts claims that he slew his victim in self-defense.

--Because they have failed to report vital statistics and contagious diseases according to the requirements of the law a number of county health officers will have to explain during the next few weeks to inspectors of the State Board of Health just why they have been negligent in this particular, and those unable to furnish satisfactory explanations will be prosecuted. A general investigation is to be made by the Board, due to the fact that no reports have been received recently from a number of counties of the State.

--Hanging on the wall in the third story of his establishment, a Wilson county undertaker is still keeping the corpse of an Italian killed in a row during a carnival in the village of Gibson some nine years ago. The undertaker, whose name is not given, states that the body was turned over to him for embalming by the carnival company, of which the Italian had been a member, together with an advance payment of $50, with instructions to hold the body for shipment, until he received a check for the remainder of the bill. The check has never been received, and the embalmer, fearing that suit might be brought against him, is still hanging onto the cadaver, which in the meantime is said to have become petrified as hard a stone.

--Candidates for State offices in North Carolina will be submitted a questionnaire by the State Farmers’ Union, as the policies and platforms of the prospective office aspirants. Three questions of special interest to farmers are: Will you favor the appropriation by the state for the work of the State Board of Health of a sufficient amount to treat free of charge all defective school children? Would you favor the Australian Ballot system, whereby every man entitled to vote can cast his vote free and untrammeled and without intimidation, coercion and espionage, thereby ensuring a fair and honest election? Will you favor an act requiring the use of a sufficient part of funds from the tax on fertilizers for the establishment of such plants as will enable the Department of Agriculture to sell fertilizer materials in car lots to farmers at cost? It is believed that some candidates will find it difficult to answer the foregoing questions in a satisfactory manner.


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