Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1884 — FRESH HAPPENINGS. [ARTICLE]

FRESH HAPPENINGS.

The Mignonette Cannibals Sentenced to Death in England. An Arkansas Train-Robber’s Confession —Two Great Women in a Napoleonic View. The Captain and Mato of the Mignonette Sentenced to Heath. [Cable dispatch from London.] Capt. Dudley mid Mate Stephens, of the wrecked yacht Mignonette, who were found guilty of murder in killing the boy Parker for food to keep themselves alive, have been sentenced to death. It is believed they will certainly be pardoned. The scene during the pronouncing of sentence was most impressive. The room was orowded. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge read -the judgment of oourt, citing authorities at length. The court declared that the taking of human life could only be justified on the plea of self-defense. The commission of murder for the sake of preserving one’s own life was unjustifiable. Of course it was a duty to preserve one’s own life, but the duty often required ouo not to save but to sacrifice his own life. The oourt must apply the law and declare that the prisoners were guilty of willful murder, for which there was no justification. If this judgment was too severe the court must leave the prisoners to the clemenoy of the crown. The prisoners were asked what they had to say before sentenoe was pronounced. Both Capt. Dudley and Mate Stephens pleaded for mercy, in view of their terrible situation when the deed was done. Lord Coleridge said it was the Jury’s privilege to recommend prisoners to mercy, and then he sentenced them to be hanged, but without the black cap. The Secretary of State for the Home Department advises the Queen to respite Captain Dudley and Mate Stephens. [The yacht Mignonette, thirty-three tons burden, sailed from Southampton for Australia May 19, 1884. June 11 she foundered during a storm in the Indian Ocean. Capt. Dudley, two seamen, and a boy named Parker escaped in a boat, but had no provisions except a few turnips, and were wholly without water. By the twelfth day their "food, including a turtle which they had caught, was exhausted, and their sufferings from thirst were maddening. The boy Parker was wasting away, and tho others hungrily wjitched his Approaching dissolution. The twentieth day, after the party had been without food for eight days, the Captain hastoned young Parker’s death by opening a vein in his arm. The three survivors eagerly drauk the boy’s blood as it gushed from his arm, and they oat his flesh from his arm and ate it unoooked, but with some degree of moderation. The Captain kept the body and served out to himself and the two sailors such rations as were necessary to preserve their lives. They prolonged their wretched existence in this way until July 5, when they were rescued.]

An Arkansas Train-Robber Confesses. [Little Rook special.] The confession of Joseph Cook, the ringleader of the train-robbers who successfully side-tracked the passenger train and plundered tho seventy-five passengers on the Arkansas Valley Railroad in the outskirts of the city Saturday night, tellp the story of the lutost daring train-robbery. “There were four in the party—Clifford, Parker, Frank Kline, and myself. We, first commenced to plan the robbery a week ago. We studied out and arranged matters in Kline’s room on Centre street. I was chosen Captain. After the robbery "W 6 walkod straight to Little Book, stopping on the way to burn our masks. Beashhig the city we separated. I accompanied Kline to his room, whero the swag was divided. We placed it in small sacks and hra it." He then named a coal-shed and a vacant building, where it was concealed. , The officers easily found the plunder, >yhich consisted of twelve gold and silver batches and $520 in bills and silver. The property is being returned to the owners as fast as identified. Cook has resided here some time, and is well known. He is a native of Austin, Tex. Clifford is a railroad man, and came here three weeks ago from Chicago. His home is at Nashville, Tfcnn. Parker iB a boy 16 years old. His parents are esteemed residents of Little Bock. Frank Kline, who effected his escape, is a car-riage-trimmer, and belongs at Logansport, Ind. At the preliminary examination the prisoners were remanded to jail, and bail fixed at SIO,OOO each. The penalty for the crime in the State is seventy-seven years’ imprisonment.

Six Person* Cremated. rPottavllle. (Pa.) telegram.] Firs broke out last night in the house occupied by Frank Barlow in Park Place, a small mining village sixteen miles from this city. All efforts to arouse the sleeping family from their slumbers were in vain. Several miners, who ran from their work at th colliery, brokee open the door, but were driven back by the heat of the now raging fire. All hopes of reaching the sleeping apartments of the Barlow family were then cut off. While Barlow’s bouse was burning the spectators were obliged to stand there and witness a most heartrending sight. In the vain attempt of Frank Barlow to save his two children the father in his night clothes appeared at the secondstory window. He raised the sash an d threw one of them'—a boy 9 years of age—to the ground below. He attempted to then save the others, but was overcome by the heat and smoke. The heroic father swayed to and fro for a moment and then, with the child still held in one arm and clinging to the window sash with the other, he sank down into a seething mass of flames. The horrorstricken spectators watched the doomed man grasping the window sill until his arm burned off at the wrist and his body disappeared from sight. When the building fell it was the fiery sepulcher of six unfortunate victims. The Attorney Generalship. [Washington special.] A meeting of the Missouri delegation to Congress was held to take action in the direction of urging Broadhead for Attorney General under Cleveland, but it was practically a failure. Senator Cookrell opposed the movement, saying he had joined with the other Democratic Senators in recommending Senator Garland for Attorney General, and, therefore, he could not indorse Broadhead or any other man for that place. The delegation could not be brought to any harmonious action, and it was finally decided to defer action upon the matter for several weeks. Heating the Record. [Chattanooga (Tenn.) dispatch.] Less than twelve month» ago Mrs. Hugh Blair, of this county, gave birth to three children, all of whom are living and in good health. Saturday evening the same lady gave birth to two boys and a girl, making six children bom to her in less than a year. [Quebec (Ontario) dispatch.] Mme. Fidele Vaillancourt, of Kamouraska, Ontario, has just given birth to her thirty-seventh child. You can buy human steak and chops i& Dahomey butcher shops.