Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1888 — THE WESTERN STATES. [ARTICLE]

THE WESTERN STATES.

A Chicago telegram gives tho following particulars of a horrible murder in that city: A shocking tragedy took plaee in the dingy two-story frame building at No. 1310 State street When pretty 15-year-old Maggie Gaughan wentto work early in the morning she was admitted to tbe shop by the negro foreman, a young mulatto named Zeph Davis. There was no one else in tho place at the time. The brute seized the opportunity, and dragging her to the rear of the building attempted to assault her. She resisted and he dragged her into a little closet under the btftirway, and choking her to the floor in the corner completed his brutish work. She still struggled, and the flond seized a small hatchet aud chopped her about the face and head. Gripping one hand around her throat, he hacked away at the writhing and dying girl. After crushing her skull the murderer went ou with his butchery. Ha slastied away at the cheeks, he tried to cut out the staring eyes. The features were not recognizable when the body was discovered hours later. The negro crowded the dead form into the furthest corner of the closet and piled sack after sack of leather findings upon it. The closet door was olosed and his crime hidden for a while. It was evidently his intention to wait till night and then devise some means for carrying away and burying the body. During the day the blaok flond disappeared, but the following morning was arrested at Forreston, Hi., sixty miles south of Chicago. He confessed to the awful crime. Some hours after he had fled the dead body of the little girl was discovered in the closet. Her parents were almost crazed with grief when apprised of the terrible fate that had befallen their child.

A woman who had subsisted on charity for years, Mrs. Elizabeth Whitney, of Cedar llapids, lowa, was found in her hovel dying, with SI,OOO on bar person and memoranda of other property. On the application for a writ or error and motion for a new trial in the Coy-Bernhamer election conspiracy cases Justice Harlan, at Indianapolis, on luesday, delivered an op nion affirming the judgment of the District Court in ovary particular. A Detroit telegram says “the Manistee Salt and Lumber Company has made an assignment to E. Golden Filer for the benefit of creditors. The assets are $1,88),COO and the liabilities $8(54,000. The liabilities are composed mostly of floating indebtedness to banks. The company is a very large concern, with a valuable plant, consisting of pine lands, lumber, railroads, saw-mills, and salt blocks, with very complete paraphernalia. There does not seem to be any danger of loss to any of the creditors, but if the concern is pushed into immediate liquidation and a forced sale, it will involve large sacrifices to the stockholders, and over six hundred workmen will be deprived of employment In the United States Court at Chicago, on Thursday, Judge Gresham denied the application of Coy and Bernhamer, of Indianapolis, for a release on a writ of habeas corpus. This compels them to remain in confinement pending a hearing by the United States Supreme Court A Texarkana (Texas) dispatch says: “The wife of James McElmore, living at this place, has g.ven birth to triplets, two boys and a girl. The couple have been married only three years, and this is the third set of triplets that have bjen born during that time, and all alive.” Six years after the crime, and after having been sentenced to death six times, Oscar F. Beckwith has finally been hanged at Hudson, New York, for the murder of Simon Vaadercook. The paper stock of Barnes Brothers, Dewas destroyed by fire. Loss $150,000. Dubing 188? railroads in Mioliigan earned $80,819,609, an increase over 1886 of $9,335,057.