From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for July 27, 1914:

• “County Attorney J. S. Amick is highly elated over the result of an experiment of a few days ago of working the prisoners of the county jail on the roads in order to work out their fine. This trial was made on Reese Wasson, who had served his time at the jail, but did not have money with which to pay his fine. He was taken to Grant township and turned over to a road supervisor and worked steadily there until his fine was paid. He had seven days to work to earn sufficient money to pay the fine and he stuck to the job until the money was well earned. He had no guard over him any of the time, but worked with the road overseer. Part of the time he was by himself. Mr. Amick is very much pleased with this experiment and the first trial proved such a success that the plan will be worked out on other prisoners like Wasson…. Mr. Amick said this morning: ‘Many people were very skeptical as to the outcome of this experiment, but this will tend to dismiss the doubt from their minds.'”
• “Potter Lake opened Saturday afternoon with all the glory that could be bestowed on the favorite swimming place of about 125 boys. The funds that were collected last week were sufficient to warrant the lake being open for the rest of the summer and having a guard there that could watch the boys and see that none of them got into trouble. Saturday afternoon the boys who had not had a good swim during the whole week commenced to come at about 1 o’clock and kept coming until their number had increased to about 125. From the smallest that could swim to the 18 year old boys, they came and enjoyed the afternoon in the lake. It kept the guard, Ralph Sproull, busy keeping his eyes on the bunch to see that none of them met with accident. The boys enjoyed the afternoon without the apparatus that will be placed there, but they will have better opportunities when the new spring board is set up…. It is the plan of the management of the lake to have one day each week for the girls and women. On Wednesday of this week this plan will be tried out and if enough girls come to enjoy the lake it is very probable that two days will be set aside for them.”
• “According to a statement of H. T. Jones, president of the Country Club, the club for Lawrence is positively assured and the permanent organization will be made some time in the near future. The committee selling stock are not getting around as fast as they wish, as they have business that must be attending to, and they are working at the soliciting as fast as possible…. The promoters of the plan have a number of locations in view and one is just about as good as another and if they cannot get one for what they can give they will select another…. Professional golf men say that Lawrence has some of the best conditions for golf links and a country club in the state.”
• “There were two arrests made yesterday near Midland when two men were taken into custody by the sheriff for taking a pair of shoes from the store of Henry Carter at Midland, four miles west of here. The men gave their names as Brown but said that they were not related. Seth Brown claimed residence at Omaha and Charles Brown said that his home was at New Boston, Texas.”
• “Glimmers of hope flickered in the darkened sky of the European politics when the Italian government notified Sir Edward Grey it had accepted the invitation to join in the mediation conference with a view to prevent the clash of arms. Improvement in the situation was caused by the influence exercised by Russia.”