Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1884 — INDIANA STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

The total loss by the fire at Fortville is es I t! mated at »boutss9,ooo. ' One of the most respectable citizens of I Angola has been indicted by the grand jury ‘ for omitting to list some of his property for ; taxation. • James DfER, of Middlgtowq, county, j has bepn in/fictedjtpr the crime of burning his ow# homtand caiiMnglhc death 'Of histwo children. The NewJ Albany, LeaVenworth and Cannelton railway has been incorporated, with a capital of $1,000,006. to build a line seventyfive miles in length, giving Perry county its first road. Lafayette boasts of the smallest and largest girls of their ages in the world. Annie Toole, at St. Elizabeth hospital, aged 21, ij less than thirty inches tall. Lettie Weygold, 12 years of age, weighs 211 pounds. The breach of promise case of Miss Helen McPheeters against U. 8. Blocksom, which was en trifl at the Federal. court at Indian, a polls, was stopped by the payment of $2,500 as a compromise. The lady had seven lawyers among them Senator Voorhees. Paddy Shea, who recently died in the Jeffersonville penitentiary, confessed that he and Alec Cronin, now serving a term in the same prison for. burglary, murdered Richard Nagel at the ferry dock, in Louisville, Ky., on the night of Pec. 2, 1881. Robert O’Nei] was arrested*ahortly after the killing and sentenced to the Kentuekj' penitentiary for life for the crime. The Indiana Bureau of Statistics, from reports which have been compiled, gives th e following summary of .the crop yield in this ptate for 1883: Wheat, .31,405,573 bushels; corn, 89,699,287; oats, 19,567,789; barley, ■399,183; rye, 358,513; buckwheat, 39,459; flax, 156,181; timothy hay, 1,831,137 tons; clover hay, 1,620,5151; Irish potatoes, 8,353,412 bushels; sweetpotatoes, 168,876; tobacco, 7,706,110 pounds. The yield of wheat in 1882 was 46,128,643 bushels, and of corn 115,699,797; bats, 19,615,516; barley, 1,138,717; rye,548,405; /potatoes, 7,261,830. The annual report of the Southern penitentiary at Jeffersonville shows that at the beginning of the year there were 590 convicts In the prison, while at the close the number had droppodjto 548. The daily average during the year .was 588, and since 1877 this has decreased. Of the 548 now in jprison, 241 were born in Indiana, 80 in Kentucky, 188 in other States, and 39 in foreign countries. At the ti.iie of conviction 71 per cent, were 30 years old or under; 59 per cent, ban read and write, 18 per cent, can yead; only 33 per cent, can neither yead nor write; 38 per cent, have been married; 8 per cent, are widowers; 21 per cent, have admitted intemperance. Fortyigix of the convicts were sentenced to imprisonment for life. The cost of the management of the prison during the last year was $82,176.20. The earnings from contract lab r during the year amounted to $66,624.11. Dr, Sherod, the prison physician, reports that there were seventeen deaths during the year but the mortality resulted largely from con-, sumption and chronic diseases contracted before the convicts were placed in prison. A sensation has been created at Indianapolis by the announcement that James B. Ryan ex-Treasurer of State, has become insane through dissipation and loss of his fortune, and that steps have been taken by his wife to procure his commitment to the hospitalRyan returned from Washington, whither friends had sent him, in the hope that a change would benefit him and relieve his family of persecutions that had become toogriev" ous to be but his appearance showed that he had been on a prolonged spree, and Mrs. Ryan was compelled to flee from the house and seek safety with friends. To his physician Mr. Ryan was so violent that sure-ty-of-the-peaee proceedings were instituted to bold him until his commitment to the hospital could be secured. Mr. Ryan’s case is a peculiarly sad one. Some years ago he was a wholesale dealer, in which business he amassed a fortune of $200,000. During that time he was a pronounced temperance advocate. Afterward he drifted into politics, and bore a conspicuous part in the campaigns of 1870 and 1874, when he was elected Treasurer of the State. Gov. Hendricks paid him a compliment in saying that his (Ryan’s) argument on the State’s finances was the clearest and strongest he ever heard. He was one of the most effective campaign speakers in the Democratic party. With tho panic came his first losses, and these were added to by speculation, until he had nothing left. A few years ago he took to drink, anj his downfall has been rapid. lie is 62 years of ag».

Report of the Secretary of State. Hon. William R. Myers, Secretary of State, has filed with Gov. Porter his report for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 1883. There was paid out for public printing the sum of $22,021.26, land for public stationery, $1,713.19; total printing and stationery, $23,734.45. The report furnishes the names and residences of all the State officials, United States Senators and members of Congress, and names of officers appointed by the Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor and Treasurer. It contains a full list of the Senators and Representatives of the Forty-third'Gen-eral Assembly, Judges- of the Circuit, Superior, and Criminal courts, Prosecuting Attorneys, Commissioners of Deeds, and county officers. There have been 963 Notaries Public appointed within the last fiscal year, and 140 Justices of the Peace have also been appointed during the same period. Th,ere were filed in the office of the Secretary of State during the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 1883, thirty articles of incorporation and consolidation of railroads, and 264 of manufacturing, mining, banking, insurance, and building and loan companies. The official register is valuable tor reference, as it furnishes a full list of the Territorial and State pfficials cf Indiana, Senators and members of Congress trom the year 1800 to the present, as also the vote for Congressmen in 1882 by counties. John F. Ramsey, for seventy-five years a citizen of Indiana and for fifty years of Indianapolis, died in that city recently'. He settled near Madison with his father in 1808, 'when there were very few white people in the Territory. He was a gentleman of wealth and social standing. Mrs. Mary C. Humaston of Terre Haute, a dealer in toys and confectionery, has, by the death of her father, John Hadcox, of Madison county, N. Y., fallen heir to a for. fuiy> of $20,000. Three clearly defined cases of small-pox fiave been reported in Lafayette.