From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for May 22, 1916:

• “Roll of Honor: English sparrow; Lincoln sparrow; Chicken sparrow; Chickadee; Warbler; Robin; Blackbird. Fix up a cosy corner in your heart, elm tree owner, for the birds named in the list above, and for a number of others; for they are working all through the daylight hours in your interests, keeping down the number of the pests that threaten the lives of the fine elm trees of Lawrence. A test carried out by C. D. Bunker of the University of Kansas shows this conclusively. Mr. Bunker slaughtered 100 birds in the interest of science, to learn which ones are eating the elm tree pests…. The English sparrow. which sometimes comes in for harsh words, is in the forefront of the war against the worms at all. ‘The English sparrow is working fifteen hours a day on this job,’ said Mr. Bunker…. ‘It is a fact that a large number of the birds appear to be eating nothing now but the elm worms.'”
• “When Prof. W. B. Downing left the evening services at the Christian church last night, he failed to find his motor car, which he had left standing in front of the church. The alarm was given to the police officers who found the car this morning in the 600 block on Indiana street. The meter showed that the car had been driven twenty miles after it had been taken from in front of the church.”
• “The city police court was busy this morning hearing the cases resulting from two fights Saturday night…. Harry Dirk, a country boy, became involved in an altercation with Sherman Fearing and John Mull Saturday night on Massachusetts street. Dirk claimed in police court this morning that he was attacked by the two others…. Mull told the court that the fight started between Fearing and Dirk, and that he arrived on the scene and tried to separate the combatants and stop the fight. He claims that he received the traditional reward of the innocent bystander in the shape of a blow on the jaw from Dirk, whom he had never seen before. Judge Albach was inclined to believe Dirk’s story. The case was continued until Fearing can be found, and the other principals were allowed to go to their work.”
• “Paris. — The battle of Verdun, the longest and most bitterly contested struggle of the war, enters on its fourth month today. The Germans with patience and stubbornness are hammering at Dead Man Hill where the most furious fighting has taken place. Clinging desperately to the trenches wrested from the French on the lower slopes of the hill the Teutons have hurled 60,000 men, backed by sixty batteries of guns of all calibers, forward along a seven-mile front…. That the Germans must continue their onslaught or abandon the idea of taking Verdun seems obvious.”
• “Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of the destruction of the Free State hotel in Lawrence by a band of border ruffians under the command of Sheriff Jones. The Free State hotel, which occupied the site of the present Eldridge house, was burned May 21, 1856.”