Friday, 14 Feb 1913--A killing occurred among the Negro population at Paris one day last week, Alf Jackson, proprietor of a Negro restaurant shooting Geo. Smith, another Negro, who had attempted to take the restaurant on several occasions. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--A TRAGEDY RECALLED--J. T. Randolph this week showed us the original of the following letter, yellow and mildewed with age, which will recall to the mind of those of our readers who lived in those stirring days, one of the grimmest tragedies of the Civil War: October 18th, 1862. Military Prison, Marion Co., Mo. Mr. L. W. Fisher, it is for the last time that I take my pen in hand to bid you all farewell. I have just had the sentence read to me that I am to be shot at one today. I want you to tell Amanda, Lina and Mat and little Tommy and your wife farewell for me for the last time. Give all my friends my love. Tell them that I hope to meet them in Heaven, where parting is no more. I feel perfectly willing to die. I have no fear beyond the grave. I want you to prepare to meet me in Heaven. I remain your affectionate friends. Farewell for the last time. Hiram T. Smith. Early in October of 1862, a man who lived in or near Palmyra, and who was suspected of being a Union spy, disappeared, and so far as we know was never heard of again. Union men of that section accused the rebels or their sympathizers of putting him out of the way, and Gen. McNeil, who was stationed at Palmyra with a body of soldiers, immediately ordered the arrest of ten of the most prominent citizens of the place, and gave it out that if the missing Union man was not returned to his home by a certain date the ten men should die. The writer of the above letter was one of the number. The missing man was not returned, for the reason, we suspect, that he had been killed, and on the day named by McNeil the ten men were taken to the fair grounds in wagons, each man sitting on his own coffin, and there shot. This affair, known as the Palmyra massacre, made the blood of the Southern sympathizers boil, and it has been said was the direct cause of Bill Anderson's raid on Centralia and his taking from the train at that place a lot of Union soldiers who were going home on furlough and having them lined up and shot. A few years following the war the story was told that Smith, the writer of the above letter, went to his death voluntarily, having asked to take the place of one of the condemned men who had a wife and family, and it has been recited as a fact from pulpit and platform. Smith made his home with Mr. Randolph's grandfather, Mr. Fisher, and Mr. Randolph says he has heard his grandfather state, as well as his mother, who is mentioned in the letter, that Smith never made any such sacrifice. A few years ago a rich man in the East offered to give several thousand dollars to some college in this state if the story of Smith's giving his life for another could be substantiated. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--RISKED HIS LIFE FOR A DIME--Will Longdon, more familiarly known as "Shag," performed a feat a few weeks ago that won him notoriety, if not fame, by swinging from the edge of the ties on the Moniteau bridge east of town while a train was coming. A picture of the bridge, with Will's companions looking up from below was printed in the Chicago Saturday Blade of the 8th, with the following write-up, the truth of which is vouched for by the boys named: Higbee, Mo. Feb 6--To prove to his friends that he told the truth when relating a previous feat, and incidentally, to earn a dime, Will Longdon, a boy, hung from two ties close to the track on a tall railroad trestle east of town while a long Chicago & Alton freight train crossed the structure. Longdon was out walking with a number of boys and as they approached the bridge he told them how he had escaped death by hanging from the end of the ties. The boys did not believe him and dared him to do it again. "I'll do it for a dime," said Longdon The dime was offered, Longdon waited on the trestle until a whistle announced that a train was nearing. Then he went out on a tie. In few minutes the freight train thundered onto the bridge. To the boys below it seemed as if the train was longer than usual but they saw it pass, leaving Will clinging to the bridge and entirely safe. He climbed back to the track and joined them, remarking that he would do it again for a quarter. Those who witnessed the "prank" were Ollie Reynolds, Alex Johnson, James Longdon, John Murdy, Irvin Hirsch and George McVey. The trestle is between two sharp curves and the point from which the boy hung is 60 feet from the rocky bed of a creek. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--Born, on the 8th, to Frank Shafer and wife, a son. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--J. H. Lynch was here from Armstrong Monday, the guest of his daughter, Mrs. Ernest Dinwiddie. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--J. B. Freeman, on Pony, Montana, writes that a fine daughter arrived at his house on the 4th. Mrs. Freeman was formerly Miss Lola Carver of this place. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--Mrs. C. W. Mangus of Moberly was the guest of her brother, J. W. Marshall, and wife Sunday. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--J. Frank Miller and family returned Monday from Arkansas where they went about three months ago with the view of locating, and have determined to try their fortunes in old Higbee once more. The NEWS joins others in welcoming them back. Mr. Miller was not very favorably impressed with the razorback state and after finding that he could not get a clear title to the farm he conditionally purchased until a big lawsuit in which the place was involved could be settled, he became disgusted and started right back for God's country. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--BEHRNS-THIERFELDER--Rev. Jerry Behrns of Cullom, Ill, and Miss Lena Thierfelder of Anaheim, Cal, were united in the marriage at the home of the bride's brother-in-law, Mayor A. B. Guerin, in this place Wednesday evening, February 12, 1913, Rev. A. F. Rice, of Glasgow, officiating. Mr. and Mrs. E. O. Reidenbach of Gilliam were the only guests. Mr. Behrns and bride will leave Saturday for a visit with Saline county relatives, and from there will go to Chicago for a visit with his mother, and from the latter place to Anaheim, Cal, for a visit with the bride's parents. On April 15th they will sail from San Francisco for China, where they go as missionaries from the Evangelical church. The bride is quite well known here, having visited her sister, Mrs. Guerin, numerous times, and is a most winsome young lady, modest and refined and most peculiarly fitted from training and education to be of great assistance to her husband in his chosen work. That happiness may ever attend them is our wish. Friday, 14 Feb 1913--REMEMBERED IN UNCLE'S WILL--Miss Belle Greeno of this place was very much surprised as well as delighted when she received through the mail Thursday of last week a check for $500 and a letter of explanation stating that that amount had been left here by her uncle, Col. C. L. Greeno, a wealthy furniture manufacturer of Cincinnati, Ohio, who died about a month ago at his winter home in Florida. Col. Greeno was about 70 years of age, and was a veteran of the Union army, being in the same company as the late President McKinley and was a close personal friend of the latter. he had visited his relatives here on several occasions, his last visit being something over a year ago, when he made a special trip to see to the erection of a monument at the graves of his parents in old Salem churchyard northwest of town. Kathy Bowlin