Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1909 — GOOD JOB LOST BY BAD NERVES [ARTICLE]

GOOD JOB LOST BY BAD NERVES

Worry Caused Agent to Do a Foolish Thing. BOOKS SHOWED SHORTAGE Freight Man at the C., H. and D. Station, Rushville, Worried Because Accounts Were Not Kept Up to the Hour and White Auditor Was Examining Them He Became the Victim of an Impulse to Take a Traction Trip to Indianapolis. Rushville, Ind., Feb. 23. —The rumor that John A. Osborn, local freight agent at the C„ H. and D. station for the last six years, was short with the company, proves to have resulted from a peculiar combination of circumstances.

In explanation, Osborn says his work had been growing more burdensome for several months and fie failed to keep up with his bookkeeping. He informed the company that this was the cause of delay in sending in his monthly report, and the auditor was sent here to assist in checking up the books.

While the auditor was at this w’ork Osborn took a number of bills and went out to collect them. In passing the I. & C. traction station, where a car was in waiting, he was seized with a strange impulse to board the car and leave the city, which he did, going to Indianapolis. Not havifig returned the next morning, when the auditor’s work was finished, there was an apparent shortage. When he returned later in the day he padi over the amount charged to him, which was a little more than the total of the bills he had out for collection. The serious mistake that cost him his position was his leaving the city. The only reason that he can assign for this is his extreme nervousness and worry over the result of his neglect of his books. Osborn was popular with the road officials, as well as with Rushville business men, almost 300 of whom have joined in a petition asking for his reinstatement.