Molong
Express and Western District Advertiser NSW
31 May
1924
AN
APPRECIATION.
THE LATE J. H.
V. LEATHEM.
(By 'Rambler.')
'A friendly
smile and a kindly word smooth many a rut on life's rough path ' — and Jack
Leathem was ever a ready and generous dispenser of both.
And these
two rare virtues in combination were the great secret of a popularity as widespread
as was the expressions of regret when the news of his tragic and untimely death
became known throughout the large district in which he had so long lived and
served.
Failings he
had — as all of us — but virtues few could claim.
Known to
all, by all was he beloved, and many a lame dog, limping along life's pathway,
has had his life brightened and his, trust in 'his fellow-man restored by the
sympathetic friendship and, kindly aid of Jack Leathem.
Gifted with a disposition
that radiated, sunshine, possessed of a firm faith in the district and its
future, and imbued with a full sense of the responsibility attaching to the
conduction of a newspaper as a vehicle for the education of the people and the
moulding of public opinion, he walked in the path he deemed to be right, and
neither promise of personal gain or threat of personal loss could deviate his steps
one inch to the right or the left. He walked straight and lived straight.
To him the
press stood for something more than, being the record of the little personal and public happenings that centred
around the town and district of Molong — it stood for a policy (and policy in
expression) of broad national democracy, of the advancement of the prosperity,
of the district and of the development of its resources.
His life's aim was to
make the 'Express' a paper worthy of the great district in which it had so wide
a circulation, and to assist whole-heartedly any and every movement that represented
progression.
He had his
own opinions — and he made no secret of them. He scorned disguise and
misrepresentation, no matter their object, and eschewed anything and everything
that would not stand untarnished the glaring light of public investigation. His
policy could be well summed up in the words 'Plain talk in plain words, and
honest action without apology.
Jack Leathem
was a good citizen, in the truest sense of the word, and though his profession
precluded his practical participation in certain phases of public life in which
he took a keen interest, yet no call for his assistance ever remained
unanswered, no demand on his charity but met a prompt and generous reply.
To his
loved ones who mourn his passing, to his friends who by his death have lost one
held in deep esteem, there is comfort in the memory of his charming smile and
ready word of cheer, encouragement in his broad outlook, and an example in his
life's motto:
'Do what you think to be right, and, don't count the expense.'
Jack Leathem
's body lies in God's Acre, but his spirit lives, for the dead are still on earth
in hearts where no high thought hath birth; death cannot clasp the spirit free
of he who dares a man to be — the wrong to right, the right to do, the truth to
speak, the false eschew.
District Coroner's report.
District
Coroner (Mr. C. C. E. Kinna.) held an inquest on Tuesday afternoon, into the
circumstance surrounding the death of the late Mr. John V. Leathem on the
Molong Manildra Road on the night of Saturday, May 17th.
Evidence was
given by Dr. Mollison, Sergeant Bool, Constable Carr and Messrs. C. J. V,
Leathem, H. Rubie and A. Packham. Constable Carr stated that from the
appearance of the wheel tracks it would appear that the deceased's horse had
bolted for 150yards along the road before leaving the formation and
over-turning the sulky.
The
Coroner's finding was that the deceased met his death from injuries, evidently
received through being thrown out of a sulky drawn by a horse he was driving at
the time of the accident.
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