Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1885 — Page 3

®!)t Jl cnto erotic Sentinel RENSSELAER, INDIANA. J. W. McEWEN, ... Publishes.

The relatives of Farmer Dickson, oi Georgia, who left an estate of SIOO,000 to bis mulatto children, have failed 'to break the wilL The only proof that the deceased was of unsound mind was the singular request that he be buried with a gold toothpick in his right hand -and a penknife in his vest pocket.

A tradition prevails among the Indians of Alaska that on Summer Island, one of a group about 4,000 feet high, with almost perpendicular sides, an extensive lake exists with shores and bottom of “glass rock,” probably crystallized quartz. The Indians say that a kind of fog overhangs the mountain about half way up, which, when reached, takes a luckless hunter in its embrace and carries him away, never to be seen again. Hence they carefully avoid even landing on the island for fear of being spirited away.

A Chicago special says: Dr. James M. Hutchinson, ono of the surgeons at the Cook County Hospital, performed a peculiar surgical operation. He says: “A young man of thirty-five years was taken to his mother’s home, on Laflin street, on Nov. 4, sick. On Nov. G I was called to see him. He had led the rapid life of a bachelor who seldom goes home, and he had a fat, pouchy stomach on him. I made an incision and drew ofl three quarts of a milkywhite fluid. I could not account for it. 1 could find no light in medical literature. I kept tapjiing him, and in twen-ty-seven days drew off eighteen gallons strange fluid. He was dropsical, but why the fluid was milky white I could not tell. I decided upon an investigation, and on Tuesday made an incision in the abdomen. I dra ned him out and made an opening six inches in length, laying the intestines bare. They looked natural, but I reached in after his liver and found a mahgnant •sore—cancerous, I should say. Then I went for his spleen, and found it adhering to the abdominal wall. But, this did not account for the milky color of the secretions, and I traced up the lacteal duct, which empt es into the left sub-clavical vein, and found a rupture. The fluid, instead of going to nourish the body, had been going to -color the matter in the abdominal cav.ty. I was satisfied. I closed up the ■opening in the duct, washed the man out, carbonized him, stitched up the -opening; but I left a vent tube, and the man will get well.”

Wm. H. Vanderbilt’s social position was not considered very high. Like Mr. Gould, lie was almost ignored by many of what are termed the best families. Ho is said to have been practically ignored by such families, for example, as the Astors, Livingstons, and Rhinelanders, the Van Rensselaers. Beekmans, and Roosevelts. They still thought there was a little too much of the nouveau riche about him; too much of the horse-jockev, and too little of the cultivation usually supposed to be associated with families whose wealth dates back further than yesterday. Still, whenever Mr. Vanderbilt .gave a ball or an entertainment of any sort his stately parlors were crowded. The Astors, it may be added, went there on such occasions, even if they afterward made “party calls;” and as to the rest, more persons were glad to respond to his invitations whenever he •sent them. His children, and especially Lis grandchildren, will have a much better social position, just as the Astors, •descendants of John Jacob Aptor, now stand well in th§ most exclusive society, though their famous ancestor en_oyed little or no social distinction.

He bad, it is said, expressed some regret that he built his house where he did on Fifth avenue; it was too noisy and crowded; there was a ceaseless roll of equipages over the Be'ginn pavement, and the street, as the tide of population moved up-town, attracted such throngs, especially Sundays, that there was little sense of seclusion.

The heir, the crown prince of the "Vanderbilt dynasty, is Cornelius. The future railroad monarch is now about thirty-live years old, says a New York correspondent. His personal appearance is decidedly prepossessing. He is very tall and has an erect, slender, and graceful figure. His hair and eyes are very dark, and his face, which is clean-shaved with the exception of small, closely cut side whiskers, shows strength and decision in every line. He began his commercial education as ■& clerk in a broker’s office, in Broad

street, rnd, after being thoroughly grounded in the principles of business, was transferred to one of the clerical departments of the New York Central Railroad in the Grand Central Depot. There his position was by no means a sinecure, and he was obliged to perform exactly the same duties as his fellow clerks whose futures were less brilliant. By steady application and natural business ability, without one particle of favor being shown him, he gradually rose step by step, passing by degrees from one department to another and mastering successfully every detail of railroad management, until he had thoroughly fitted himself for the exalted position he now holds. It is probable that no one in this country is more thoroughly conversant with railroad methods than he is. Although most of his time is devoted to the care of the vast interests in his charge, Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt yet finds leisure to indulge liis taste for art, of which he is an enthusiastic lover. His gallery of paintings in his splendid home on Fifth avenue and Fifty-seventh street is one of the finest in the city, and is constantly receiving additions.

The launch of the Eureka at one of the Brooklyn yards, the other day, is one step in a notable experiment for doing away with steam in naval propulsion. The main idea in the new system is to drive the vessel forward or backward by the expulsion of gas from the submerged bow and stern against the water. The idea is not a new one among scientists, but it is claimed that in the Eureka it has been made practical for the first time. The vessel itself is of about seventy-five tons, being 10J feet by twelve, with a depth of seven feet. On each side, about eight feet forward of the stern-post, are two lidcovered ports, connected with chambers. There are also two forward ports of the same kind, and through these the discharges are made from a central point, those from the stern for dri ing the vessel forward, and vice versa, while a simultaneous discharge from a forward por; and aft starboard chamber, and vice versa, will turn her sharply ro.md in either direction. The engine only takes up six feet ,of room, and only enough power is required to com; ress air into a steel globe two feet in diameter, into which vaporized petroleum has been forced. The exjdo,sivc material to be used has been kept a secret, but the New York Sun intimates it is a gas generated from oil and ignited [by electricity. Should the experiment prove successful its application will be watched with great interest. It seems a daring move to try to dethrone King Steam, but invention grows bold in these days, and he would be rash who should say that people will not soon be exploded across the Atlantic.

Drs. Douglass and Shra ly.wlio used cocaine a great deal during General Grant’s illness to relieve the pain, have been talking with a New York correspondent about its effects on their patient. Dr. Douglass said: -“I never used it hypodermically or internally, and only in weak solutions. The effect on General Grant was most effcac'ous. I used it on him first on Dec. 16, 18 vj. He came to my oflice and said he had not been able to swallow" for several days, and a few moments after the application he was able to take a small drink of water. We did not feel justified in using it constantly, and for at least three months no applications were made. Later on we began again, and as the paitent grew weaker and the pain became moro intense we had to apply it frequently. The General was never allowed to treat himself, and a physician always watched him when it was administered. We never dared to administer more than a four per cent, solution of it, for the case was too grave to experiment with. I have General Grant’s own opinion of cocaine as an anaesthetic, and some day I may publish it. It is not the use, but the abuse, of cocaine that the papers should decry.” Dr. Slirady said that he thought the discovery a great blessing, but thought it would be confined to narrower fields of operation than people supposed. He said: “Dr. Leonard Corning has recently invented a process whereby by the constriction of that part of the body to be amestheticized the power of the drug can be concentrated to the field of operation, and a much weaker solution of the cocaine can be used. This prevents the drug coming in contact with the greater part of the blood, and there can be no deleterious effect. If this proves to be what is claimed for it, all will be well. Cocaine is going to provi a valuable aid in therapeutics, but, like all drugs, it can not be trifled witlx."

A MOST FIENDISH PLOT.

Discovery of a Scheme in San Francisco to Kill Off Many Leading Hen. • Judges, Congressmen, Capitalists, and Public Officials to Be Dynamited to Death. San Francisco dispatch. One of the most sensational and startling plots for wholesale assassination of the most prominent men in this city oame to light here to-night. Some time ago the police obtained information of the existence of an organization called “The Socialistic Revolutionary Association,” which, it was asserted, was comprised of ultrasocialistic members. A close watch was kept on their movements, and the police finally succeeded in obtaining the minutes of one of their meetings, held Nov. 23. From these facts it was discovered that it was the intention of the association to put out of the way about twenty men, including W. T. Coleman, Congressman W. W. Morrow, Gen. W. H. L. Barnes, Mayor Bartlett, United States Judge Lorenzo Sawyer, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Gov. Stoneman, the principal police officials, and several others. These names were placed on the “prospective list” and placed m the hands of the Executive Committee to carry out the orders of the association. The committee were to devise the best mode of accomplishing the ends of the base plot, and were thus engaged when their work was brought to a sudden termination to-night by the discovery of the association’s headquarters at No. 900 Montgomery avenue, by the police, and the arrest of four men found therein, named Julius C. Koosher, Henry Weiseman, Charles Mittelstadt, and Oscar Eggers. In the room were also found complete laboratory for the manufacture of infernal machines. The men were taken to the city prison, when they boldly asserted they were dynamiters, and proposed to get rid of the citizens named, and then raze Chinatown. The pi-isoners also belong to the German branch of the Anti-Cooly League. No charge has yet been entered against the prisoners. Further developments are expected.

WILLIAM H. VANDERBILT.

A Sketch of tho Recently Deceased Millionaire. The late William H. Vanderbilt was bom in New Brunswick, N. J., May 8, 1821. His father, at the time of his birth, was owner and in command of a steamboat running to Now York. The family soon removed to New York City, where, and in Staten Island, William attended the public schools, finishing his education at the Columbia Grammar School. At 18 he entered as a clerk the house of Drew, Robinson & Co., a leading firm of bankers and stockbrokers. At the end of two years his business aptitude was so great that the firm offered him a junior partnership. Remaining until two years thereafter, his health failed him in consequence of close application. He then pur-

chased seventy-five acres of land on Staten Island, which was soon increased to 350, and went to work farming. During the first years of this activity he was chosen receiver of the Staten island Railroad, and after two years of hard work, having restored its finances to a sound condition, he was elected its President. His father was a large stockholder in this road, but, as is well understood, lent no adventitious aid to his elder son’s career. After a few years of hard work on his farm and in the railroad office, Mr. Vanderbilt went to Europe, in consequence of the precaiious condition of his brother George’s health. He remained with him until his death, a period 'of several months, when he returned to Staten Island and his farm, not engaging any further in railroad administration untfl 1864, when he became, by his father’s desire and the election of the corporation, Vice President of the New York and Harlem Railroad. He married in 1811 Miss Kissam, daughter of a well-known Brooklyn physician, by whom he had eight children, four boys and four girls. After assuming executive control of the Harlem he was, in 1865, elected Vice President of the New York and Hudson River Railroad. During the five years that followed his entrance into railroad affairs Mr. Vanderbilt was probably the hardest working executive in the country. He made himself familiar with every detail of administration, personally examining each mile of the great system under his charge and becoming acquainted with the nature of every man’s duties, and work, and wages, and the relations they bore to all others employed by the corporations he controlled. Competent critics claim that he lifted the burdens of administration from his father’s shoulders, and became by the date of the consolidation of the three New York lines under the Vanderbilt hand into one complete trunk line system between New York and Buffalo, which was brought about in 1869, one of the best informed and most capable railway executive* in the land.

John Gurney, the Mayor elect of Norfolk, England, is blind. In some parts of Mexico the natives build pig-sties with rosewood logs. Thebe are nearly three thousand women voters on the lists in Toronto. They have full municipal suffrage.

FOOD FOR FLAMES.

A Detroit Family of Four Persons Perish in Their Burning House. An Oregon Crazy Woman’s Insane Act —Other Fatalities by Fire. A DETROIT FAMILY CREMATED. Frank Knocli, His Wife, and Two ChlUtrei Perish In Their liumlng Building. Detroit special. The house of Frank Enoch, a market gardener living in the suburbs of Detroit, was destroyed by fire at an early hour this morning. In the flames perished Frank Enoch, aged 26; Susan Whitman Enoch, his wife, aged 22; George Enoch, their eldest child, aged 3 years; Frank Albert Enoch, a babe. The origin of the fire, the hour of its beginning, or any of the circumstances attending its outbreak, or the efforts of the family to escape, are alike unknown. The fact of the sad fate of the entire family is apparent in the three charred and blackened bodies, out of which every semblance of humanity has disappeared. These are the bodies of the father, mother, and one of the children—which one it would be impossible to say, for the shriveled little form has nothing distinctive. A few bones of the back and a twisted limb are about all that remain. Nothing could be more horrible than tho sight of these remains as they were laid together in a heap beside the smoldering ruins in which the search for the other child was being prosecuted. It is learned that B. Joseph Eana, George Laurain, and James Whipple were returning from their lodge meeting about 1:30 o’clock. The house of Enoch was burning and they raised the alarm, but it was too late. The entire structure was in flames, and by the time they reached it tho roof had fallen in and the walls had begun to fall. There was nothing to be done in the way of suppressing the flames. Tho water supply was limited to the well, which was inclosed in a kitchen. Tho creek below was a full quarter of a mile distant and covered with ice, and the men were helpless. They gathered snow and ice and attempted to beat out the flames, but their efforts were futile. For a moment the floor of the house withstood the flames, and in that instant they saw the remains of the family, which almost immediately sank into the cellar. Willing hands cast aside the charred rafters and beams, and in a few minutes the bodies of Enoch and his wife, apparently clasped in each other’s embrace, were exposed. The effort to lift tlidhi out was attended with difficulty, as they crumbled away on being touched. But by slipping beneath them some planks they were tuken up and brought into the snow. Then it was seen that the body of a child was between them, but only one. Shortly after ten o’clock the searchers came to what they supposed to be the remains of the other child. There was scarcely anything left; certainly nothing by which it could be distinguished as being the younger or older one. What remained was taken out and placed with the rest. The Enoch family were sober, industrious German Lutheran people. Frank Enoch was known to have money in the house, which he had been saving to make some payments. The searchers in the ruins found a revolver, and it is said Enoch never owned one. These two factß led to the suspicion that murder was committed for the sake of robbery, and the building then fired to cover up the crime. The position in which the ashes of the family were lying would seem to oppose this opinion. However, nothing is definitely known, everything about the house having been completely consumed. One body was not at first found, and it was thought the flames had entirely devoured it. Later the searchers found the crumbling ashes of what had once been the youngest chikl. The Coroner’s jury met and adjourned till later in the week.

A CRAZY WOMAN’S IIEEI). She Fires Her House and Cremates Herself and Four Children. Olympia (Wash. Ter.) telegram. At Long Prairie, about eight miles from this place, a deplorable event occurred. Mrs. Miner, a relative of Mr. David Chambers, had for some time manifested symptoms of insanity, and, according to report, she last evening saturated papers with coal oil and distributed them around the house, telling one of her children, on inquiry, that she was wetting them with water. Early this morning she made the remarii that she was about to destroy the whole family, and her husband, fearing that she was about to attempt his life, proceeded to put her out of the room, but on opening the door discovered the house in flames. Reaching the front door with one of his children, he found it locked and the key removed; thereupon he ran to the back door and found it nailed up. Finally he and his little daughter succeeded in escaping through a window, but were both badly burned. The unfortunate woman, with her four other children, was burned to death. LOCKED THE DOOR. A Colored Father’s Imprisoned Children Burned to Death. Starkville (Miss.) dispatch. A negro man, by the name of Bladen, living near Starkville, absented himself from his home several hours, locking his three little children in the house. When he returned the building was reduced to ashes, and all that was left of his-children were a few bones and charred flesh. DEADLY GASOLINE, A Little Boy Burned to a Crisp at Cleveland. Cleveland dispatch. William White, a telegraph operator, living at No. 36 Ontario street, was engaged in cleaning his little son’s dress with gaso line. The father had stepped from the room for an instant, and when he returned he found that the fluid had ignited, and that his child, aged three years, had been burned to a crisp. The mother was away from home at the time.

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

—At LaPorte, Frank McCollum was fatally kicked by a horse. —The Salem Press has change baud*. L. O. Seltmarsh is now editor and proprietor. —At New Albany, notwithstanding the cold, colored converts are being baptized in the river. —Fire at Goshen destroyed Hawks Bros.* furniture warehouse. Loss, $20,000; insured for SB,OOO. —The Lafayette Paper Mills Company has made au nssignmeut. The liabilities are said to be $30,000. —A night watchman at the Southern Prison shoe-shops has been relieved from duty because he said he saw ghosts. —There are sixteen Indiana men on the pay-roll of the House of Representatives—four more than any other State delegation has. —There is a gas vein on the Charlestown pike, three miles from Jefferaouville, and prospecting is going on to find an eligible place to tap.

—Senator Voorheos has consented to deliver his lecture ou “Jefferson” in ten cities in Indiana, shortly after the holidays, in aid of the Hendricks Monument fund. —lt is said that the woman who threw a stone through the depot window, has been sent to the work-house for ten days. Is hanging played oul‘t~lnditouipotin Journal. —An appeal has been taken from the decision of a Lafayette judge, who ruled that au application for a liquor license published in a German paper was a valid notice. —Henry Moore and Joseph Beddlo, in crossing railway tracks in a buggy near Lafayette, were struck by a train. Moore was instantly killed, and bis companion fatally injured. —A broken rail ditched the engine, bag-gage-car, and smoker of a Monou passenger train near Putnamville. Three employes were seriously hurt, but the passengers escaped.

—The Wabash City Council refused to compromise the claim of the Wabash Hydraulic Company for water rents from 1875 to the present time, and tho company will file suit against the city for $4,000.

—A young man named Ewry, baggago master on a Louisville, New Albany and Chicago train, while assisting in coupling cars at Elliotsville, was so badly squeezed as to make his recovery extremely doubtful. —George Kunstmun, a member of tho firm of Knobtock, Ginz & Co., millers, of South Bend, committed suicide by shooting. He had been failing in health about a year.

—The Postoffice ut Daggert, Owen County, has been discontinued, and the mail goes to Coal City. The Postoffice at West Saratoga Springs, Pike County, lms been discontinued. Tho mail goes to Oatsville. —Within the Inst year some eight or ten horses have been stolen from Union County, and the County Commissioners have offered a reward of SBOO for the apprehension and conviction of the first horse-thief.

The snloon of Paschong & Co., in tho business center of Andrews, east of Wabash, was saturated with coal oil and set on tire. The blaze was discovered barely in time to prevent a huge conflagration.

—Edward Bean, a Chicago lawyer, was indicted by the Grand Jury of Clarke County for trespassing on the farm of James Cole, a farmer living near Charlestown. He was arrested, and gave bond in the sum of SI,OOO.

—ln a quaiTcl in a school yard at Westfield, John Garver, son of Judge Garver, struck Harry Steed on the head with a stone, killing him instantly. The murderer is sixteen years old, and his victim was about the same age.

—By an explosion of gas in a Terre Haute city building the offices of the City Clerk and City Treasurer were completely demolished, and the Deputy Treasurer seriously injured and burned. The City Clerk was slightly injured.

—Near New Era Station. Levi Kesslor shot L. H Hamer, placed him on the track, and rifled his pockets. Kessler was arrested and confessed. He obtained from his victim a watch and $6. The father of tho murderer asked the officers to hang him.

—Mrs. Hendricks’ heart wound was twice made to bleed afresh lately by a telegram mnouncing the sudden death of a near relative of her dec used husband and another bringing the news of the death of a tvaim personal friend, and whose name is inown to every section of the State. The 'iist was the death of Paul Hendricks, a •onsin of the deceased Vice President, and •vho dropped dead while conversing with friends at Madison, this State. He (lied of Kiruhsis of the heart, the same disease vhicli proved fatal to his distinguished iinsmau. The second was the death at Dublin. Ind., of Mrs. Sarah Smith, with •ilium originated (lie idea of a female reformatory in this State, and to whose energy and super intendency the institution is a standing monument. This is the iustituion of which Mrs. Hendricks was long President of the Board of Managers, and Mrs. Smith was one of the strongest pillars.