Lewis Benton, who has lived near Shingletown, Cal., fifty miles from a railroad or town, all his life, came to Sacramento the other day to settle up a timber claim at the United States land office.
Benton, who had read a great deal about the white-slave traffic and had heard something about moving pictures, looked up a newspaper reporter who had spent the summer with him, and together they attended a picture show.
Real trouble was reeled off at the theater. The films showed a stirring play, in which a deep-eyed villain with a silk hat and a cane did his worst for three reels. During the most thrilling portion of the play, when the villain tried to hurl one of his fair victims from the sixth story of a building, Benton could contain himself no longer.
He whipped out his forty-four-caliber revolver and began shooting at the screen. After the police had seized and hustled Benton away, the screen was examined, and it was found each of the five shots hit the curtain within the space of a silver dollar. When the pictures were run again, it was found that the villain was struck between the eyes by every bullet.
The newspaper man had a hard time explaining Benton’s action to Police Judge Waldo Thompson. The judge finally consented to let Benton return to Shingletown minus his “shooting iron.” The revolver was sent to him by parcel post.
Finds Money in a Chimney.
When he moved into a recently purchased house, Floyd Wilkins, of Georgetown, Del., was overjoyed to find a sum of money hidden behind a loose brick in the chimney. The money is supposed to have been placed there by the former owner of the house, who died several years ago. Wilkins has not disclosed the amount.
Pathetic Romance of Aged “Lonesome Bill.”
While hunting for coon in the mountains north of Big Laurel, Va., the hunters came upon the cabin of old “Lonesome Bill,” and seeing no light in the house, investigated and found the old man dead. Whether the aged hermit froze to death or died from illness no one knows, but it is thought that he had been in poor health for some time, and it is likely he succumbed to old age.
His exact age is not known, as all his family have long been dead or moved away, but it is supposed that he was near one hundred years old, probably older. The old man was seldom seen away from his mountain home, and how he lived is still a mystery. It is said that at the age of eighteen or twenty he came to the mountains from the eastern part of the State, with his father, mother, and three sisters. They were all nice people, and Bill was well educated, having graduated from some Eastern university. He fell in love with one of the mountain girls near where his father had bought a large farm, and was about to marry her when his father, Mark Alexander, interfered.