Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1918 — 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. BRING OUT THE FIRING SQUAD Hanging Is Too Goqd for This Class of Ghouls. New York, Oct. 22. —In an vestigation here of the activities of alleged “coffin ghouls’’ the federal authorities today caused the arrest of two 'undertakers on charges of attempting to defraud the government. The undertakers, it is alleged by representing to relatives of dead soldiers that the government coffins in which the bodies were shipped home were “cheap l pine boxes,” secured orders for expensive caskets and then appropriated the government coffins, in some cases reselling them to the government. The “cheap pine boxes” cost the government $36 each. The "coffin ghouls" are said to have reaped a rich ‘harvest since the Spanish influenza began taking its toll in the training' camps, and several more undertakers are said to be under investigation here.