Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1887 — LATER NEWS ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

LATER NEWS ITEMS.

A working model of a torpedo boat of a novel design was last week exhibited to the members of the House Naval Committee, by the inventor, Gen. Berdan. The boat is intended to do .Xactive service in cases where other forms of torpedo have failed—that is, where the craft attacked is protected by a network of chain suspended beyond the hull by spars. The model is that of a vessel 150 feet in length, 20 feet in breadth, and 16 feet in depth, and intended to attain a speed of 24 610 knots an hour. A feature of this craft consists of a pair of brass tubes, arranged vertically on the sides and sloping downward, capable of firing t irpedoes containing 200 pounds of dynamite or other high explosive.

Mrs. Roxalana Druse was hanged at Herkimer, N. Y., for the murder of her husband in December, 1884. The details of the murder, as related in her dying confession, are horrible in the extreme. The murder of her husband was deliberately plotted and carried out with a cold-bloodel fiendishnqss that seems almost incredible. Ihe victim was attacked while at the dinner table by his daughter, according to the preconcerted plan, and was thereupon shot in the head by the wife. The latter then called her son and a nephew, both mere lads, from an adjoining room, and compelled them to fire four or five shots into the body of the prostrate and dying man. Thereupon the wife hacked off her victim’s head with an ax, the daughter standing by. The head was buried in an adjoining field. The body was cut up into small fragments, part of which were burned in the stoves at the Druse cottage, an 1 the rest fed to the hogs. The daughter was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and the boys were acquitted on account of their tender Until the night before her death Mrs. Druse boldly maintained her innocence, and it was only when the last hope of executive clemency ha! vanished that she admitted her participation in the crime.

Peoria merchants are organizing a barge hue to convey grain to the Gulf from Chicago, Peoria aud St. Louis. By the falling of a roof of one of the buildings of the Bessemer Steel Works of Cleveland, 0., one man was killed and eight others injured. A Swede named Johnson, a soldier in the Salvation Army at Chicago, was con victed of stealing shirts and money from a residence. Annie Marie Barker, aged 21, daughter of a well-known physician of Jeffersonville, Iml, committed suicide with poison because her marriage with Adam Bauer, aged 19, had been prevented by the latter’s father. D. B. Lucas has been appointed by the .Governor of West Virginia to be United States Senator from that State. The Russian Foreign Minister has given to the Turkish ambassador at Constantinople his opinion that there will be no war.

The Senate passed the pleuro-pneumonia bill on the 28th ult., with an amendment extending its application to the swine plague and other contagious diseases. A proposition to require the assent of the authorities of a State before the Commissioner can expend anv of the appropriation therein was lost. The'Senate also passed a bill for the adjustment of railroad land-grants and for the forfeiture of unearned lauds. The President sent to the Senate the following nominations : H. R. Harris, of Georgia, to be Third Assistant Postmaster General, vice Abraham D. Hazen, resigned; James M. Trottsr (colored), of Massachusetts, to be Recorder of Deeds for the District if Columbia; James M. Adams, of Yakima, Washington T. rritory, Register of the Land Office at Spokaue Falls, Washington Territory; Reuben A. Reeves, of Palestine, Texas. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico. Postmasters—William McCrudden, Nevada, Mo.; Joseph B. Willis, Richmond, Ky.; Frank L. Clark, Augusta, Wis. ; Hattie M. Anderson, Havelock, Ill.: Thomas S. Murphy, Zanesville, O.; Louis Hocke, Clyde, O.; 8. L. Hunt, Warren, Ohio. Both houses passed the bill to prevnt the employment of convict and alien labor upon public works and of convict labor in the preparation of materials for public works. An arbitration measure also passed both bodies. The House of Representatives agreed to the conference report limiting to 81.100.00 J the cost ot a public building at Detroit. The President vetoed an act for a postoffice building at Lafayette, Ind., since the Government has leased a now structure for five years.