Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1878 — NEWS SUMMARY [ARTICLE]

NEWS SUMMARY

THE WAR IN THE EABT. Servian troop* have captured Pzrot, with a uantity of guns and ammunition. It is impossible to procure full information . 'agarding the condition of the Russian and dcumanian soldiers and Turkish prisoners who were on their way to Bucharest during the snow-storm, but, from disconnected details that have come to hand, it is evident that there has been terrible suffering. The following is the text of England’s note Russia: “Her Majesty’s Government begs to inform the Emperor that the Porte is ready to open peace negotiations. The Emperor’s wisdom and repeatedly-expressed love of peace justify the hope that he will lend a favorable ear to the Sultan’s request.” It is said that Russia has already replied to England’s note that if the Turks desire an armistice they must apply direct to the Russian Comm&nder-in-Chief. Details are slowly coming in concerning the sufferings of Turkish prisoners from Plevna on their way to lloumania. The prisoners were unaccompanied by any vehicle for the purpose of picking up those who fell by the wayside. These wore left by the guards to freeze, as they had no means of carrying thorn, and a halt would only have been to increase the number of vicliriis. The Russians have achieved a rare feat of perseverance and endurance in crossing the Etropol Balkans, and, tlmigh the force cannot be very numerous, and the whole movement seems to savor rather of a bold, adventurous raid like Gen. Gourko’s over the Hankoi pass than of a regular military operation, it cannot but hasten the withdrawal of the Turkish j troops from tlio Balkan line, at any rate from i the western portion. Dispatches from Bucharest say the army j which was to cross Bchipka pass and co-operate ' with Qeu. Gourko in hit? movement against Adrianople gives no sign of activity, and, while j the present weather continues, such operations would be impossible. The deep snow offers an almost insurmountable obstacle to wagons, and t'ae Russians have no sledges. xv -e bloody path over the Balkans rocks called to., Hchipka pass, from which, a few months ago, re«ennded the groans of the dying until the whole -world cried out against the useless slaughter, has ai been left free to the Russians who have so stiTUiornly occupied it. The evacuation of that portion licid by tho Turks was compelled by the state of | Mio weather, which, at that high altitude, is I understood to be far too rigorous for tne exist- j euco of the hot-blooded Turk. ‘ A telegram from Gen. Gourko announces { that a dosperato engagement occurred on Jan. ; 2 near Bogrov. Tho Turks attempted to sur- I round live battalions of Russian infantry and a brigade of cavalry, but were defeated, leaving J a thousand dead on the field. The Russians ! lost 200.

GENERAL FOREIGN NEWS. The newspapers of the City of Mexico are exceedingly bolligerent in tone, and aro urging an alliance of tho Coutral American states against what they are pleased to term Northern aggression. > In London, on the 29th ult., there were two meetings of workingmen. They were called to consider the Eastern question, and one of them was composed of friends of Turkey, while the other was made up of champions of peace. They reasoned with each other for an hour, and, after a free interchange of opinions, bludgeons and paving-stones, were adjourned by the police before deciding tho questions at issue. There were many broken heads and a number of arrests. Official intelligence has been received announcing the succors of tho Chinese troops in Kashgar. They had fortified Touchtongarear and Aska, two strong strategical points. The inhabitants were fleeing in terror into Russian territory. Stanley, the African explorer, lias arrived at Cairo, Egypt, where he was magnificently entertained by tho Khedive. The Advertiser hears, on reliable authority, that official information has been received in St. Petersburg that the Chinese have massacred 15,000 men, women, and children in tho Kashgarian town of Manas, committing most frightful atrocities. A terrific explosion of gunpowder recently occurred at Montevideo, 8, A., resulting in the killing and mortal wounding of some sixty or seventy officers and soldiers. The uneasiness in France at tho prospect that England would seize upon Egypt was so great as to lead to a diplomatic correspondence on tho subject. A note of inquiry was recently addressed by the French Government, and in response the British Minister of Foreign Affairs gave tho most positive assnrance that England had no intention of helping herself to the land of the Pharaohs. Gen. Corona, Mexican Minister at Madrid, has signed a treaty by which the naturalization oi Spanish subjects as Mexican citizens since 1875 is declared void. Ex-Prosidont Grant arrived at Alexandria, Egypt, on the sth of January, aud was received by tho authorities with princely honors. Tho Pope’s health is improving. A London dispatch says there is talk in some quarters of a dissolution of Parliament in consequence of tho hopeless divisions in the Cauinet. Tho anti war agitation throughout the country is on the incroase, but seems confined pretty closely within party lines. The King of Italy is seriously ill. City of Mexico items : President Diaz pretends to entertain anti-European sentiments, and is apparently courting a close alliance with the United States. Outside the capital the unsettled condition of the border is hardly discussed. The press is disposed to be cautious on the subject. Congress, before adjourning, authorized the construction of railroads from the City of Mexico to Morelia; from Cetaya to Palmilias, and from Ometusco to Packuca. A convoy carrying *30,000 in silver was robbed in the District of Mexico. The robbers escaped.

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE. East. The notorious Northampton (Mass.) hank j robbers, Scott and Duni %p , have each beeQ sentenced to twenty years’ confinement in the ! State prison. George M. Brooks, banker, Lowville N. Y. has failed, liabilities $60,000. George B. Bigelow, a prominent Boston lawyer, has been arrested for embezzling *4O 000 held by him in trust. John Haddock, of Ferndale, Pa„ shot and killed Miss Lizzie Davis, and then ended his own life by the same means. Love and ealousy. The office of J. H. Young, in Nassau street, ew York, was robbed, the other day, of *IOO,OOO worth of bonds. T*4e Pittsburgh (Pa.) Ravings Bank has faded, wing depositors about *IOO,OOO. Indictments have been returned by the Grand mTt°t f ord, fi’ agttinßt Messrs. Furber, Wilkely, White Mid mew and ihr#* W* late Charter Oah Ut« Xnnuanee

Company, for conspiracy to defraud policyholders. | Thomas Lord, one of the wealthiest retired | merchants of New York, aged 84, married, a , few days ago, the celebrated Mrs. Wilhelmina Wilkins Hicks, aged 43. His children have joined in a petition stating that their father is deprived of his understanding through old age, infirmity and decay of his natural powers, and is unfit for the government of himself and ! management of his estate, wherefore they | pray for a commission in lunacy. The affair | has produced a big sensation in the metrop- ! olis. The cost to Pennsylvania of suppressing the riots of last summer foots up about *500,000. Two men were killed and a third probably fatally wounded at Glendale, L. L, by the explosion of a dynamite cartridge while preparing a blast. The schooner Martha Innes went ashore on Cape Cop, and the crew of six men were lost. A number of other vessels were wrecked by the recent gales on the Eastern coast, and some loss of life is reported. West. Thomas Nixon, supposed to be one of the Union Pacific express robbers, has been arrested in Texas and taken to Omaha. The number of hogs slaughtered and packed during the past two months in Chicago has been 1,022,537, against 1,050,945 for the same period last year. The loss of property on Western rivers during the past year is set down at *5,330,000. This includes the ice and coal-boat disasters on the Ohio river, amounting to *4,000,000. The number of lives lost during the same time was seventy, more than two-thirds by explosions 1 and burning of steamers. I A poor orphan boy in St. Louis named August KablemanD, has been left a fortune of *300,000 by the death of an uncle in San Francisco. Jacob Bunn, banker, Springfield, HI., has joined the innumerable caravan of bankrupts. Liabilities, *750,000; assets, *250,000. The State Savings Bank, Indianapolis, Ind., and Hickox & Spear, bankers, San Francisco, Cal., have also collapsed. The Union Pacific Railroad Company has ordered a red notion of the wages of its employes. A terrible explosion of nitro-glycerine occurred at Negaunee, Mich., on the 2d inst., by which seven men were instantly killed and several others more or less injured. The shock was felt for many milts around, shaking the buildings in Ishpeming, throe miles distant, breaking tlio glass in nearly all the stores and dwellings in Negaunoo. The explosion occurred while some men were loading nitroglycerine into a freight car on the Chicago and Northwestern railway track, just west of Negaunee, within twenty rods of the North Jackson mine. Some 4,800 pounds had been or was being loaded, when the explosion occurred, with Buch tremendous force as to completely demolish the locomotive attached to the car and blowing tho car- itself into fragments. The engineer, William Myers, the fireman, and two brakemen, namod respectively Charles Miller, Jeremiah Foley, and William Spellman, were instantlykilled, and their bodies horribly mangled. Ira Hinkley, H. A. Wheeler, and his sod, 20 years old, who were handling the packages, were blown to atoms, fragments of their bodies being found three-fourths of a mile away. Considerable property was destroyed by the explosion. Chicago papers announce the failure of Samuel Bliss & Co., wholesale grocers, and J. D. Easter & Co., dealers in Marsh harvesters. The Bliss liabilities are given at *130,000; assets not stated. Easter A Co. owe *1,400,000; assets (on paper) about *1,500,000. The failure is announced of Clement, Mortou & Co., one of the heaviest wholesale clothing firms in Chicago. Abraham Lipnian, the leading pawnbroker of Chicago, has failed, owing creditors about *IOO,OOO. When our “uncles” begin to go into bankruptcy the times must indeed be sadly out of joint. It is reported that a desperate and bloody fight took place recently in tho Pan-handle of Texas, south of the Red river, on the buffalo hunting grounds, between a hunting party of Indians composed of Arapahoes and Pawnees, and another hunting party of Pawnees, during which some thirty Cheyennes and twelve Pawnees were killed. The gold and silver product of Colorado for 1877 reaches the neat sum of *7,879,432. South. The Tennessee Legislature has adjourned without agreeing upon any settlement of the State debt, tho object for which the session was called. A Nashville (Tenn.) dispatch says a frightened team backed a wagon containing Mrs. Morris Goodloe and four children off the bridge over the Obion river, resulting in the drowning of the four children. The banks composing the Clearing-House Association of New Orleans have passed resolutions protesting against the remonetizing of silver. The business meu of Nashville and the other Southern cities are agitating the ques tion of establishing direct trade with the West Indies. A delegation has gone to Havana with that object in view.

POLITICAL POINTS. The Washington Post, the new Democratic organ at the capital, announces in a doubleleaded editorial that hereafter the Democratic Senators will vote to confirm the President’s appointments. A Washington Post representative inter- ! viewed the President the other day, and rej P° rt|a him as follows : “He says he has exi haunted his powers under the constitution to ! pacify the South to avert the war of races j which seemed impending at one time, and to j withdraw all obstacles to the normal- ope ration of the principles of local self-government. He has put an end to Federal interference, and has called the attention of Congress and the country in his message to the results of this action. Having done thiß, his power to act is exhausted. He deprecates the efforts which are being ! made in various quarters to prolong popular agitation and perpetuate sectional feeling, not because of its reflection upon him or his motives, but because it tends to exasperate I the people of both sections, and thus to j prevent that clear . understanding be- ! tween the North and South which is essential to the restoration of perfect unity of patriotic sentiment. He expresses the belief, however, that the utterances of those who, in | their capacity of managing politicians, are ; seeking to stir up strife will not find among the | masses of the Northern people any consider--1 able response; that when the Congressional campaign comes on it will be found that the people are no longer excitable over those topics, and that the managing politicians, find*ing uo material to work upon will soon aban- ! don tlieir anti-Southern programme. As for other matters of public policy, Mr. Hayes reI marks that he has seen no cause to reconsider | ot the past, generally speaking, and no reason to modify any purposes which he may have formed or announced at any previous period of his ad^lulstratioc." A Washington cermpoiultm a Set tovfc

journal telegraphs that the President's special message to Congress on civil-service reform promises to set forth practically the same plan as was proposed by the old Civil-Service Commisaion. Competitive examination will he urged, with no removals from office of those who have passed it, except for cause. Dorman B. Eaton, of the Civil-Service Commission, has communicated to the President the result of a thorough personal investigation of the English civil-servioe system. The feature thereof which retains efficient and faithful officers wil be proposed as a basis of all true reform in the executive branch of our Government. Thro3 letters written by Charles Sumner to Gerrit Smith, in August and September, 1871, have just been made public; They relaie to the renomiuation of President Grant. It seems that Mr. Smith was in favor of it. Mr. Sumner was very earnest and elaborate in his opposi tion. WASHINGTON NOTES. It is expected in Washington that the present session of Congress will be a lengthy one. The Appropriation Committee will soon be ready to report on the Pension, Consular, Naval, and Po-rtoffice bills, but the condition of general business indicates that slow progress will be made. A commission composed of two army officers designated by the President and a third member to be selected by Gov. Hubbard, of Texas, is to investigate the affair at San Elizario, with power to summon witnesses and take testimony as to the part borne in that bloody business by citizens of Mexico. During the six weeks comprising the called session of the present Congress bills were introduced authorizing the expenditure of nearly *5,000,000 for the erection of public buildings. These bills provide for the erection of public buildings and the expenditure on their construction of the amounts named below : Galveston, Tex. $ 500,000 Houston, Tex 300,000 Tyler, Tex 300,000 Shreveport, La 50,000 Savannah, Ga 300,000 Kansas City, Mo 250 000 Jefferson City, M0....'. 100,000 Montgomery, Ala 350,000 Danville, Va 50,000 Lynchburg, Va 200,000 Pittsburgh, Pa. 900,000 Erie, Pa 150,000 Davenport, lowa , 150,000 Quincy, 11l 150,000 Topeka, Kan 300,000 Leavenworth, Kan 250,000 San Francisco, Cal 250,000 Sacramento, Cal 100,000 Total $4,650,000 The silver-wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes was celebrated at the White House on the 31st ult. The affair was very quiet, only about 100 guests being present. The Treasury Department’s statement, published below, shows a diminution of the public debt for December of $71,623 : 81x per cent, bonds $ 748,667,200 Five per cent, bonds 703,266,650 Four and a half per cent, bonds 200,000,000 Four per cent, bonbs 74,900,000 Total coin bonds $1,726,833,850 Lawful money debt: Navy pension fund at 3 per cent $ 14,000,000 Matured debt: Principal $ 21,512,240 Legal tenders 350.007,308 Oertmeateß or ut-pooit 02,000,000 Fractional currency 17,764,108 Coin certificates 33,424,900 Total without interest $ 434,026,317 Total debt $2,196,372,407 Total interest 37,436,285 Cash in treasury—coin... $ 139,518,405 Cash in treasury—currency 6,498,844 Currency held for redemption of fractional currency 10,000,000 Special deposits held for redemption of certificates of deposit 32,830,000 Total in treasury..... $ 187,847,250 Debt loss cash in treasury .$2,045,955,442 Decrease of debt during December 71,623 Decrease since June 30 14,202,780 Bonds issued to Papiflc Railroad Companies, interest payable in lawful money; principal outstanding 64,623,512 Interest accrued and not yet paid 1,938,705 Interest paid by United States 35,957,629 Interest repaid by transportation of mails, etc 9,006,189 Balance of interest paid by the United States 26,951,439 Tho Comptroller of the Currency lias called for a report showing the condition of the national banks at the close of business on Friday, Dec. 28, 1877. The internal revenue receipts for December fell off *448,000. The cause is thought to be the agitation in Congress to reduce the taxes on whisky and tobacco. Tho coin in the national treasury, as shown by the monthly statement of tho Treasurer, amounts to *139,618,405. Nearly one-fourth of this belongs to private persons who hold certificates of deposit and may present them at any moment. The amount owned by the Government appears to be *106,093,605, while the legal-tender paper outstanding, for the redemption of which this coin has been accumulated, is nominally *350,007,308. A considerable portion of this total has doubtless been lost, worn out, or destroyed, and will never be presented for redemption. It is stated from Washington that the purpose of the Ways and Means Committee in its scheme for the reorganization of the tariff is to make a harmonious new Tariff bill. The committee have taken the official estimates of the necessities of the Government for revenue, and propose to reduce the tax and tariff so that, while the necessary revenue will be produced, the burden will be removed from the people and from home industries. The Postmaster General haß prepared a tabular statement showing the number of stamps issued each fiscal year from 1859 to 1877, both years included. From this statement the rapid and constant, increase in the business of the postoffice is plainly apparent, the issue of ordinaiy letter stamps growing from about 200,000,000 in 1869 to nearly 700,000,000 in 1877. The Postoffice Department, under directions fiom Congress, is engaged in ascertaining the compensation paid to postoffice clerks in the different cities with the view to legislation looking to the equalization of the salaries. It is stated from Washington that a plan is in contemplation at the Treasury Department to send to the Senate a bill intended as a compromise for the Bland bill. The proposition will be to so amend the Bland bill as to make the silver dollar equal to a greenback, and a legal-tender to the same extent as the United States notes are. Another proposition of the opponents of the Bland bill is to coin a dollar of the same value intrinsicaUy as the gold dollar on the basis of the present price of silver. The President has appointed the following Assistant Commissioners to the Paris Exposition : D. R. Morrill, of Pennsylvania, President of the Cambria Iron Works; Prof. Watson, of Michigan, the astronomer; Alfred Grey, of Kansas, of the State Agricultural Society ; Andrew B. White, of New York, President of the Cornell University; Prof. Jenkins, of Louisville, chemist; Col. Jillard, of Louisville, aud Prof. Safford, of Tennessee,

MISCELLANEOUS GLEANINGS. Pfcf. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, reports that Prof. Foerster, of Berlin, announces the discovery by Palasia of a planet of the eleventh magnitude, seven hours and eight minuteß right ascension, 39 degreels 37 minutes north deoliuattoti, tuo pr**to.ot of to* prwieut mu,i* to toe

region between the Missouri river and the Pacific, for 1877, is estimated by Wells, Fargo & Co. at *98,500,000. The yield of California wa* *15.250,000 in gold, *1,250(000 in silver, *1,750,000 of “base bullion,” the latter containing about 28 percent, of gold. Nevada’s product was something more than #51,000,000, nearly nino-tenths of the whole being reported as silver bullion, but containing 45 per cent, of gold. Burned : The Union Mills, Lafayette, Ind. loss, *100,000; H. Walsh & Sons’ dry-goods house, Church street, New York, loss *57,000; several buildings at Westerly, B. L, loss *40,000. A dispatch from Halifax, N. S., says the ship Nebro, from Cascumpec,., Prince Edward’s island, has been lost, with nine men on board. Three of the bodies washed ashore at New Frage. The General Superintendent of the United States Life-Saving Service has submitted his annual report of the operations of that service for the last fiscal year. The report showb that there have been during the year 134 disasters to vessels within the limits of the operations of the service. On board these vessels there were just 1,500 person?. Estimated value of the vessels. *1,986,744; and of the cargoes, *1,306,588. Number lives saved, 1,461; lost, 39. Amount of property saved, *1,713,647; amount lost, *1,579,685. The Government Commission to bo appointed to investigate tho recent disturbances in Texas is intended to be a secret affair—so much so that not even the names of the Commissioners will be disclosed. Advices from Lima, South America, give particulars of the loss of the steamer Atacama, on the Chilian coast, some weeks ago. In all, it is estimated that 101 persons were drowned. Twenty-nine were saved. The ship was on a trip from Valparaiso to Callao. She struck at 8 p. m., when the majority of the passengers were below, and so instantaneous wa3 the freaking up of the ship that no time was given to gain the deck. The passengers were mostly Chilians, journeying between the ports. Eev. David SwiDg, of Chicago, has joined hands with Canon Farrar aud Henry Ward Beecher, and proclaims his unbelief in an eternal hell.