MAN HANGS SMALL BOY TO A TREE IN WOODS 

Residents of Bates, a small Catskill mountain village back of Preston Hollow, are looking for a “strange man” who grabbed a boy 11 years old who was on his way home from a store with groceries for his mother, and hung him by his neck in a tree, where the boy was found unconscious by his father. 

Melvin Cook, while working in the yard of his home near Bates heard sounds like groans coming from the woods. He went to the edge of the woods, only a short distance from the house, followed the sounds and discovered his son, Ralph, 11 years old, hanging by a rope from the limb of a tree. The boy’s toes just reached the ground, not enough to prevent strangulation, for he ceased groaning as his father took him down.

The boy was taken to the house and when able to speak told his parents he had been attacked by a strange man, that the man put the rope around his neck, hung him in the tree and went away. He said the man wore rubber boots and described his looks. 

Boot racks were found later by searchers at the spot where the boy was tied to the tree. A man answering the description of the “strange man” was seen in that section previous to the hanging, but has not been seen since. 

FARMER’S SON SHOT BY GIRL AT POTTER’S HOLLOW 

Wednesday night Miss Lillian Smith, who lives near Potter’s Hollow, in the southwestern corner of Albany county, shot James Haskins, son of George Haskins of Broom Center. The shot took effect in his right leg, severing a main artery, and he died shortly afterward from the wound. 

After a thorough investigation by Assistant District Attorney John J. Conway Jr. and Coroner Mullen, Miss Smith was exonerated on the ground that she was justified in shooting Haskins. 

The story as told by the young woman is that on Wednesday night she was busy in the kitchen of her home about 10 o’clock, the family having retired, when a young man entered and declined to answer her inquiries as to what he wanted. She ordered him to leave which he reluctantly did and stood by the door looking at her. The recent experience of a boy being hung up to a tree a few days before being fresh in the young woman’s mind, she figured the stranger might mean harm and his refusal to leave led her to use a shot gun in self protection.

The father of young Haskins informed the authorities his son was subject to epileptic fits and on several occasions before had wandered about the country, his mind at such times being unsound. 

SCHOHARIE. 

Six fires were started in the village in the business section during the “movies” on a Thursday evening recently, and at least as many motives have been advanced, but the firebug is yet at large. Authorities are following up clues. 

Little Homer Wood Suffers Fractured Hip.

While his father, William Wood, was turning his auto about in front of their home Thursday morning, little Homer Wood, 3 years old, fell from the car and before Mr. Wood could apply the brakes the front wheel of the machine passed over the boy. Dr. A. I. Cullen was called and Homer was taken to the Ellis hospital, Schenectady, where an X-ray examination was made. The photograph showed two breaks in his hip bones. He was brought home and is resting comfortably. 

If the little fellow can be kept quiet a few weeks will bring him around again.