Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1916 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts of the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings in the Nearby Cities and Towns —Matters of Minor Mention From Many Places. THINK DEATH REPORT A RUSE Mexicans Have Offered No Proof as Yet of Villa’s Demise. El Paso, Texas, April 17. —-General Gabriel Gavira, Carranza commander at Jaurez, announced tonight that the Mexican telegraph wires between Jaurez and Chihuahua had been blown down near Pearson about noon, and that for that reason he was unable to learn any further details of the reported discovery of the body- of Francisco Villa. At the same time a telegram filed at Chihuahua City, presumably before the interruption to the wire service, was received by the Associated Press from Consul Letcher saying that nothing was known in the state capital regarding the finding of the bandit’s remains.

These two circumstances combined to reinforce 4he growing skepticism here as to the truth of. the story that death had ended 'the career of the fugitive bandit. The story that the man who is really dead is Pablo Lopez, the notorious butcher of Santa Ysabel, and that Villa has used his death as tihe basis of a false report of his own decease, was revived. This story was retold today by an American owner of a large ranch in the Guerrero district. The confidence of Mexican officials here, and in Jaurez that Villa is dead, has not diminished, however, outwardly at least. It was pointed out today that If bhe body had been brought to C'usihuirachic It might fake the better part of a day to transport it from there to Chihuahua City. The road bed between these two points is in a deplorable condition.