The German kaiser has conferred on the pioneer company of a Lorraine battalion the right to wear the skull and crossbones on the cap, a distinction monopolized by the Death’s Head Hussars. The action was taken at the instance of the crown prince, who reported the valor of the pioneers in building bridges and constructing earthworks under dangerous circumstances.
Austrians and Germans Foes.
Until recently the Austrians and German prisoners of war were kept together, but the Russian authorities had so much difficulty in preserving order among these nationalities that to prevent fights they have separated them in the hospitals. In Saratoff the Austrian wounded petitioned the authorities to separate them from the Prussians.
Mystery Man Fights for Estate.
“J. C. R.,” the man of mystery, whose case has puzzled the country since he was found at Watseka, Minn., in June, 1907, has stepped from a comfortable home in Chicago into a tragic drama, the central figure in which is a wealthy rancher of near Dickinson, N. D., whom he claims as his father and from whom he is seeking to obtain $100,000 as his share of the estate.
No stranger story has ever been told than that of “J. C. R.,” the man who couldn’t remember. In 1900, it is now claimed, he was Jay Allen Caldwell, obstinate son of a former Chicagoan. Then he was struck on the head with a spade.
For a dozen years thereafter, without memory, without knowledge of his own identity, and without means of caring for himself, he wandered about, known only as J. C. R.
A few months ago a Chicago woman identified him as her missing son, Earl Iles, and J. C. R. gained a name and a home at the cost of his quondam fame. Bereft of his chief attributes of interest, the man and his little tragedy dropped from sight.
The suit which his lawyers filed early this week against A. J. B. Caldwell, whom he claims as his father, has been dismissed, but the lawyers say this was permitted in order to get more evidence, and it will be filed again within a few weeks.
Dispatches from Dickinson, the scene of the tangle, disclose the fact that seventy-five residents of the town, former neighbors of the Caldwells, identified J. C. R. as the missing son three months ago. Caldwell reiterates his charge that J. C. R. and his Chicago backers are conspirators, but Caldwell’s daughter has identified the man of mystery as her brother.