Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/203

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House of Representatives was first organized there was one congressman for every 30, 000 people. ” — Reference to the Con stitution would have shown the phrase , “ The number of repre

sentatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand; " the number of representatives assigned the different states by the same section of the Constitution would have shown that at the

time there was one representative to approximately forty -five thousand persons. A local paper recently stated, “ Postmaster A .of the neighboring village of X . was re- instated March 2 on a petition sent to Wash

ington signed by one hundred and sixty -five patrons of the office ,

after having been removed on a complaint said to have been made by Mr. B . who accused Mr. A . of being in a saloon .” This was

contradicted by the postmaster of the village in question who stated that Mr. A . had never been postmaster of that village and therefore could not have been either removed or re-instated .

In 1911 the press from New York to California copied the

statement, “ Miss A ., principal of B . College which was opened in 1867 says ' no graduate of B . College ever has obtained or been

involved in a divorce."” Reference to the B . College catalogue would have shown that no person was connected with the college bearing the name given , that it had no officer with the title of

" principal, " and that the College was not opened in 1867; refer ence to the register of graduates would have shown that the state mentattributed to themythical principalhad no foundation in fact. A local paper announced one morning that the previous night a man had disregarded the signals and had driven his horse over a

pavement just laid in fresh cement, thereby causing damage to the pavement to the amount of nearly $ 1,000 . An evening paper

of the same date described the affair and stated that damage to the amount of several hundred dollars was reported to have been

done and added that five signal lanterns had also been destroyed . Two days later the same evening paper announced that there was no serious damage to the pavement and that the driver agreed to pay the city for the damage done the red lights along the pave

ments.

The morning paper next announced that no actual

damage was done to the pavement and that the driver had settled for the breaking of one lantern and the globes of four othe