The Press: Grave Error

One morning last week, the countenance of William R. Timmons, Executive Secretary of the Greenville (S. C.) Chamber of Commerce grew stern. He had viewed the doings of Mutt and

Jeff as reported one morning by the fecund pen of Artist Bud Fisher in The New York World. Mutt was seen abed, sleeping off the effects of a strenuous evening. Little Jeff was up, dressed, eager to explore the city in which they had stopped. Artist Fisher had indicated clearly that it was a city, not a town. He had indicated, moreover, that it was a city noted as a cotton center. That was what Little Jeff was going to investigate—cotton. Artist Fisher had named the city, too. “Greenville, N. C.,” he called it—and that was why Mr. Timmons’ face had grown stern.

Mr. Timmons sat down and wrote a letter to The World, explaining that Mutt and Jeff had indubitably visited Greenville, S. C., not Greenville, N. C. Upon looking the matter up, The World found Mr. Timmons to be perfectly right. Greenville, N. C., is a mere town, on Tar River, noted only for tobacco, cotton not at all. Greenville, S. C., is a city with a cathedral, several collegiate institutions, cotton mills no end. Said Mr. Timmons: “I am wondering if you could not call the attention of your readers to the fact that this error has occurred. You may not know it, but Greenville has between 500,000 and 750,000 spindles.”

Said The World: “Imagine a man like Bud Fisher not being cognizant of the vast difference between two such totally different towns as Greenville, N. C, and Greenville, S. C. . . . How on earth could Bud Fisher possibly have been so stupid as not to know that Greenville, S. C., had such a mass of spindles? . . . The World, in behalf of Bud Fisher, does the manly thing and apologizes. . . .”