Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1888 — THE WESTERN STATES. [ARTICLE]

THE WESTERN STATES.

Hugh M. Brooks, alias Maxwell, the slayer of C. Arthur Preller at St Louis, has written an appeal to the American people calling for fair play and justice. He re-echoes the ringing cry of his sturdy old father and says that the law is cruel, that justice should be tempered with mercy, and that he is a fit subject for clemency. He asks: “Were my rights respected? Did I have a fair and impartial trial?” And answers himself by saying that the jurors had formed an opinion, that his attorneys were not allowed to define the terms of the law, while the prosecuting attorney was permitted to do so. A long consultation between President Spalding, of the Chicago Base-ball Club, and Fred Pfeffer, the second-baseman of the team last year, says a Chicago dispatch, was brought to a close by Pfeffer signing a contract to play at Chicago in 1888. A libel suit for SIOO,OOO was instituted against the Detroit Evening News by Maxwell M. Fisher, a prominent and wealthy business man of that city. Winthrop Colbath, brother of the late Vice-President Henry Wilson, died at East Saginaw, Mich., a few days ago. The Michigan Temperance Alliance, in annual convention at Jackson, abandoned its non-partisan position and aligned itself with the Prohibition party.

Believing a collision imminent at Junction, DI, the engineer, Fireman Daniel Donovan, j of Marquette, Mich., and Edward Kelley, a stockman at Gladbrook, lowa, jumped from the cab of a freight engine, rolled under the wheels, and were killed. The Supreme Court of Michigan has rendered a decision in the contest on the will of the late Francis Palms, the millionaire lumberman, a document affecting property to the extent of some $17,000,000. The will constituted the son and daughter of the decedent and Michael W. O’Brien, a leading banker, trustees, to hold the property until the end of the minority of the youngest living grandchild, and provided that if his daughter, Clotilde—who has been given considerable notoriety by Senator Jones’ infatuation with her—did not marry and have heirs, his entire estate should descend to the children of his son, Francis F. Palms. The appeal was taken to the Circuit Court in the form of a petition to interpret the will—the provisions of which cut off either party making a contest The ' Circuit Court declared the will invalid, and - an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court I That court decides that the will was valid except in so far as it destroyed the power of alienation in the trustees during two lives, that clause being declared illegal. The trust constituted by the will, therefore, continues. Two men were killed and four injured by the bursting of a boiler at Barnesville, Ohio. Five years ago the 5-year-old son of Capt W. E Dickinson, of Commonwealth, Wis., mysteriously disappeared. It is now re- ! ported that negotiations for the return of the | boy for a ransom are pending, and that $lO,- ■ 000 has been demanded by the kidnapers. A San Francisco dispatch says the Merced Canal, built to convey water from the foot , hills of the Sierra mountains at San Joaquin, \ has been formally opened. The reservoir in which the water is stored contains 640 acres. The canal is twenty-seven miles long, and has been five years in building. It will irrigate j over a quarter of a million acres. ’ | An Indianapolis dispatch says that “Judge Judge Woods in tfie Federal Court overruled the motions for a new trial in the cases of Coy and Bernhamer, the convicted tally-sheet conspirators. Coy was then sentenced to the penitentiary for eighteen months and to pay a fine of $100; Bernhamer to go a year and pay a fine of SI,OOO. They were remanded to the county jail, where they will remain pending the appeal to Judge Gresham.”