People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1897 — A QUEER CASE. [ARTICLE]

A QUEER CASE.

Strange Story of a Pension Claim Told In Congress. , N One of the queer cases in pension annals was reported to the house a day or two ago It was a Pennsylvania case, where a soldier enlisted as Harmon Franqis. a name he assumed for the correct one of Hiram Francis He fought bravely through three years of the war in Company K of the Ninety-seventh Infantry vohmteers. At the end of that term of service he was veteran-ized-and re-enlisted for three years more. But soon, by the consent of his company and regiment officers, he was allowed'to go home, and Ins brother, George Francis, took his place in the ranks. Now, the brother Hiram is dead. George served'to the end of the war and received honorable discharge in his brother's assumed name. He v.;as wounded in the mine explosion at Petersburg, for whjch he drt w a pension under his brother’s enlisted name until the latter died, when it was stopped. But George wants a pension for his 17 mouths' service. Hirafn’s widow now receives pension for the seryie»of her dead husband. This was too much for the bureau of pensions, and so the matter was taken to congress, where the committee on invalid pensions decide* that both soldier and substitute's wifiovd arp entitled to government aid in their declining years. —Washington Post.