From the Magic City, news of local factories, Hemingray working steadily

FROM THE MAGIC CITY.

Glass Trade Happenings Faithfully Chronicled

by Our Able Local Correspondent.

Muncie, Ind., Dec. 3. — While prosperity seems to be on the wane in many parts of the country, Muncie glassworkers have no room for complaint, although the ironworkers and many others are not so fortunate.

The Hemingray and Boldt glass plants are working steadily as usual, but the last Muncie factory was closed for several days last week on account of an accident to the boilers. Manager Holden takes an optimistic view of the future and hopes, with the assistance of a number of Syrians who carry in and hold molds in this plant to operate steadily until the bluebirds whistle in the spring.

The large plant of Ball Bros. is working to its fullest capacity in all departments and with an unusually light stock, things look exceedingly bright.

Another example of the effects of cheap literature of the blood and thunder variety has forced itself upon our attention by the bloody crime of Harry Hooper, a glassworker well known to the trade, who slew the marshal of Fairmount on Thanksgiving Day. According to our informant, Hooper was born and reared in Bellaire, O., where he learned the trad at the old Aetna glass works. With the discovery of natural gas and the removal of many glass factories from Bellaire and vicinity to Northwestern Ohio, Hooper migrated to Tiffin, and later to the Indiana gas belt.

After various minor troubles of different characters, he was arrested on a charge of burning the Wilson-McCulloch stock sheds at Fairmount about four years ago. However, he was acquitted of the charge of arson, but during the trial it developed that he had stolen some silverware for which he was given an immediate sentence to the Michigan City prison. He was paroled last spring, and since then he has been working at Fairmount and vicinity until the commission of this terrible crime.

Those who knew him best say he was a constant reader of dime novels, and a search of his trunk revealed a Winchester rifle, revolvers and bowie knives, together with many pictures of desperate outlaws. While the lawmakers of our country are making so many laws of more or less importance, why don't they make one to suppress the distribution of such literature and thereby earn the gratitude of thousands of heartbroken parents?

Executive Officer John O'Brien, of the white liner department, and his brother, Thomas, have returned from Philadelphia, after attending funerals of their brother and aunt. We sympathize with them in their double affliction.

The latest arrival at Ball Bros. is Geroge Higgins, who comes direct from the office of the Fostoria at Moundsville, W. Va. — Kalces.