Items of Interest August 1, 1903 Issue

Items of Interest

Injunction proceedings, it is reported, will be begun if any further attempt is made by Philadelphia city councils to send the old Liberty Bell on further excursions like the recent one on the occasion of the celebration of Bunker Hill Day at Boston. Not only will restraint by law be sought by the lineal heirs of John Wiltbank, but the plaintiffs will set forth the fact that the bell is not the property of the city, State, or nation, but the personal property of the descendants of a man who took the cracked emblem as part payment of a debt due to him by the city of Philadelphia for casting a bell to take the place of this one, which was cracked upon the occasion of General Lafayett's visit to the city. The old bell was not destroyed and Wiltbank insisted that it remain in the possession of the city, though he never relinquished his claim to it.

Suit has been instituted in the United States Circuit Court by the Mercantile Trust Company of New York for the fore closure of the $15,000,000 mortgage on the properties of the United States Shipbuilding Company. The suit is brought because of the default of the payment of $400,000 interest on July 1 and the failure of the company to establish a sinking fund.

The plants covered by the mortgage are those of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco; the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Me.; the Hyde Windlass Company, Bath, Me.; Crescent Shipyard Company, Elizabeth, N. J.; Samuel Moore & Co., New London, Conn.; Harland & Hollingsworth Company, Wilmington, Del.; the Canada Manufacturing Company, Cateret, N. J. The Bethlehem Steel Works are not included in the property covered by the mortgage.

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