Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1888 — Page 3

CONKLING.

Borne Interesting Reminiscences of New York’s Famous Ex-Senator. His Own Version of the Reasons Leading to His Resignation from the Senate. The Blaine Episode—Recollections of His Youth—His Boyhood Home. [New York telegram.] "Funeral services were holdover the remains •of ex-Seuator Conkling on Friday morning in Trinity Chapel, West Twenty-fifth street Rev. Morgan!* Dixofficiated,assisted by other clergymen. In the afternoon the remains 'were taken on a special train to Utica, N. 1., where the final interment took place on Saturday. The pallbearers were: Judge Shipman, Abram 8. Hewitt, 8. L. M. Barlow, Clarence A. Seward, Manton Marble, Senator John C. Jones, Senator Don Cameron, William J. Wallace, Walter ■B. Church, Isaac B. Bailey, and ex-Secretary •of State Hamilton Fish. In New York and Brooklyn flags were placed at half-mast on the City Hall and other public buildings out •of respect to the memory of the dead statesman. Cause of Mr. Conkling’s Illness. Henry C. Melville, of New York, the law associate of Mr. Conkling, says: “It was not the •better experience of the blizzard that brought •on Mr. Conkling’s trouble. He did not complain at all of any pain or illness thereafter. Mr. Conkling contracted a cold in Judge Hor--ace Russell’s office, March 29, while in consultation with ex-Surrogate Rollins, Leslie W. Russell, and Horace Russell. There was no fire in the room, and Mr. Conkling shivered frequently. All next day he complained of pain in his ear. The following Monday, April 2, I received a letter from him, saying he was ill and could not attend to business. The n#xt day I visited him at his rooms. He said that he had been in perfect agony since Friday. The physicians had given him so much opium, he said, that he was beside himself. The following Thursday I saw him •again. He said he had not had a wink of sleep in a week, and could not sit or lie still in bed, such was his agony. He realized that he was in a desperate state, but seemed to think the pain was due to the opiate and not to the abscess. He ghowed that delirium was .coming on him in other ways.” *

Hk Boyhood Home. On Madison avenue, near the Reformed 'Church, stands the house where Roscoe Conkling was born, Oct 30, 1829, says the Albany correspondent of the Chicago News. It today presents practically the same appearance ■as when that illustrious man first saw the light of day. It was here that the statesman, •when a boy, labored faith! uly in the old academy and acquired in'it the rudiments of an education that, in after years, made him a leader among men. From Albany Roscoe ■Conkling was sent to New York and placed under the instruction of a private tutor. There he was “birched into the •classics,” as he was wont to say, but liked them less than the English essayists and reTiewers. His early passion was for rhetoric, ■oratory, and politics, and to them he directed no small share of his attention. Old friends •here love to tell of the promise of his early ■days; how, while yet a strippling, his personality drew about him a following, and his ■oratorical gifts enchained multitudes. He was always a great student, and the light -often shone far into the night from his study windows as he pored over the books in which he sought the solution of knotty problems of law. After reaching man’s estate he frequently visited his birthplace, and his old friends gave him a royal welcoma His loss is deeply felt here by citizens, irrespective of party, who knew the man and honored him for his true worth.

Conkling as a Leader. The death of Mr. Conkling is not an incident, but an event, remarks the New York Herald. As a political influence, rather than as apolitical leader, Mr. Conkling will be honored. He was not born to lead a modern democracy. He was Coriolanus, rather than Rienzi—a master, not a tribune. The arts of modern leadersnip—tact, compromise, recognition ot the limitations and weakness of devoted friendship—were unknown to his haughty spirit He rather led the leaders of men—the centurions, the captains of the fifties—who were attracted by the force of his character and followed him from admiration of his picturesque and splendid genius. ' "The intense honesty of Mr. Conkling became often intolerance. There was no bending that intrepid will. His devotion to a principle •or a friendship was that of Loyola and not of Talleyrand. We have lost the most aggressive leader in American politics since Clay and Webster died, thirty-six years ago. But he is not dead. His life remains an incentive, an example—let us say an admonition. For it may be well-to remember as an admonition that in any public career, pride, intolerance, and the Swift-like gift of withering invective may retard or prevent opportunities of lustrous service to the commonwealth. Attitude of the Blaine Men. There is one possible result of the death of Roscoe Conkling which the Republican politicians here are contemplating with much interest, says the Washington correspondent of the Chicago Inter Ocean. Perhaps the question which has suggested itself more frequently than any other is, What effect will the aeath of Mr. Conkling have upon the Republican nomination for the Presidency? The Blaine men have but one answer to that question. They are very positive that the result will be to encourage the movement in favor of the nomination of Mr. Blaine. For one thing is to be noted—the immediate friends of Mr. Blaine, whatever may have been meant by the famous letter which is generally termed his letter of declination, do not for a moment intimate that he is not a candidate for the Presidency. On the other hand, they all insist not only that he will accept the nomination, but th at" he will be nominated. The Blaine men here maintain that the death of Mr. Conkling will give an impetus within the -State of New York to the movement in favor of Mr. Blaine which that movement would not have had otherwise. A Notable Episode Recalled. Hon. & 8. Cox gives the following interesting reminiscences of Mr. Conkling: “I happened to be present when the contest occurred between Blaine and Conkling. It was a wild scene. It began with a little matter about Provost Marshal Gen. Fry. It was not a great theme, but it aroused intense excitement, inasmuch as Mr. Conkling had insinuated some dishonesty against the General. It was a hot debate. We Democrats stood aloof and-observed it, not without some satisfaction. It began, as a great many of these troubles do in Congress, about the report of the debate. Mr. Conkling charged Blaine with frivolou? impertinence in putting into the debate an imputation upon his motives. It ended some time in April, 1866, about this time, twenty-two years ago. But it was renewed on the last day of April. “It was a terrific encounter between two men who were thoroughly iron-clad by that time. It began on that day with a demand from Mr. Blame to have Gen. Fry’s letter read. Mr. Blaine contemptuously referred to Mr. Conkling as *the member from the Utica district’ Then the debate began. Mr.

Conkling, in his measured, quiet, sardonic tone and humor threw his hoc shot upon the member from Maine. Of course, the Democrats enjoyed it. This debate showed Mr. Conkling in his beet light of repartee, so far as the House was concerned. Several gentlemen interposed to stop, if they could, the blows that were given and taken, but Mr. Blaine, who was skilled in the dialectics and rules of the House, got the last word; and, after repaying what he called ’the cruel sarcasm’ in which Mr. Conkling was an expert, he hoped that he would not be too severe in that mode of handling his innocent self. ‘The contempt of that large-mindod gentleman is so wiittng, his naughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbier strut has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this House that I know it was an act of the greatest temerity for me to venture upon a controversy with him. ’ “Then Mr. Blaine referred to the man whom I supposed to be the moat eloquent orator I have met in Congress—Henry Winter Davis. He referred to the ‘little jocose satire of Theodore Tilton—that the mantle of Davis had fallen upon the gentleman from New York,’ and that that gentleman had taken it seriously, and it had given ‘an additional strut to his pomposity.’ Tt is striking,’said Mr. Blaine; ‘Hyperion to Satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dung-hill ■to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a roaring lion.’ These phrases have never been repeated in the House with so much vindictive animosity. But the Democrats enjoyed it It was not their fight ”

His Withdrawal from the Senate. A personal friend and admirer of Mr. Conkling, says a New York telegram, gives Mr. Conkling’s own version of the circumstances attending his resignation from the United States Senate in 1881. This friend was a fellow-passenger with Mr. Conkling on the steamship Gallia, in a voyage to England in the summer of 1885. “Senator Conkling hinted to me,” said he, “ the reasons for his indisposition to support Garfield for the Presidency, but as he did not express himself in detail on this point I think it better to pass over it He told me that at first he determined to take no part in the canvass of 1880, but later, at the urgent solicitation of Gen. Grant and other friends, he consented to enter the campaign and speak for the Republican party, but not for the candidate. Thereupon he returned to his clients retaining fees to the amount of about SIB,OOO, chartered a private car, and took a man with him to prepay his bill at every hotel where he staid, in order to be free from all obligations. He delivered his first speech in the campaign at Warren, Ohio, and from there went to Mentor to call upon Gen. Garfield, who expressed his gratitude and sense of obligation to him in the strongest terms. Mr. Conkling made several speeches at other places—in Indiana and elsewhere—incurring a total personal expense in the canvass of about $29,000, including the amount of the fees he returned to his clients. Soon after Garfield’s election Mr. Conkling informed his friends of his purpose to resign from the Senate. This intention was stated privately as early as November, 1880, though it was not then publicly announced, as there was a desire that Mr. Conkling should do certain things to further the administration in the State of New York. He not only assented, but took immed:ate steps to carry out the President’s wishes. At this time Garfield voluntarily assured Mr. Conkling that when he made the principal appointments in this State he should select whatever persons were acceptable to that Senator. In the same week the President, without another word to Mr. Conkling, sent to the Senate the nomination of persons especially objectionable to him. “Soon after this a caucus of the Republican Senators was called, at which a committee was appointed to wait on the President and inform him that in the opinion of those Senators his course in regard to these appointments was calculated to disturb the harmony of the party. When the committee informed President Garfield of this action of the caucus he expressed much indignation, saying that he did not propose to be dictated to, and that any Republican Senator who voted against these nominations would thereafter receive no favors from the Executive. Senator Conkling then determined to carry out his original purpose of resigning from the Senate. Ho felt that if a co-ordinate branch of the Government was to be dictated to by the President in that manner he had had enough of that administration.”

A FAMOUS BASE-BALL MAGNATE.

Albert G. Spaulding, the President ol the Chicago Club.

The Chicago Inter Ocean, in its series of illustrated sketches of well-known Chicagoans, prints the following interesting biography of the now famous President of the Chicago Base-ball Club:

the fact that all the boys in the land were familiar with it, and the supremacy lay between A. G. Spalding and P. T. Barnum. Everybody in Chicago is acquainted with the name; it is a household word. There used to be a glue man named Spalding, but he had his day before “Al” got here. There is only one Spalding now, and he is the Base-Ball King. He came into prominence in 1876, when the great “big four” deal was made with Boston that transferred Spalding, White, McVey and Barnes from that city to this. The championship was won then and held for several years. Mr. Spalding became the secretary of the Chicago Ball Club, and in 1882 succeeded William A. Hulbert, who died, as president, an office which he has held ever since. Mr. Hulbert was the founder and president of the National League, and Mr. Spalding was elected president of the league up to within four years ago. A. G. Spalding was born in Bvron, IIL, September 2, 1850. He was educated in Rockford, 111, and became connected with the Forest City Ball Club in 1865. This club was the most prominent in the country at that time. In 1867 he came to Chicago and was bookkeeper for Meeker <t Baker. He returned to Rockford in 1870, and was bookkeeper for the Rockford Register. He was the pitcher for the Forest City Club in 1871, and that same year was engaged by the Boston club as pitcher and captain, a position he held until the end of the season of 1875, when he came to Chicago. He started the A. G. Spalding & Brothers’ store here at that time, and in 1877 retired from the ball field as a player, devoting his time to his business, which has grown to be the largest of its kind in the world. A branch store was opened in New York in 1884, and agents ar« established in every large city in Europe and America. Mr. Spalding’s latest venture is the prepara, tion of plans to take a double team of ball players to Australia at a personal expense of *30,000. As he was the manager of the Bos-ton-Athletic visit to England in 1875, he maj be said to have experience in this line,

A leading New York newspaper asked the question of its readers, “Who are the ten best known Americans?” Of the hundreds of answers received 90 per cent, of them contained the name of Albert G. Spalding. In commenting upon the subject the editor said that of all the r names probably Mr. ’Spalding ’s was known to more of the inhabitants than any of the others, from

BLED FOR TWENTY YEARS.

American Farmers Robbed by Trust-Protected Classes. All Monopolies and Huge Corporations Oppose a Revision of the Tariff, Because It Would Leave the People x No Longer at Their Mercy. There is one peculiar fact in connection with the most persistent, the most rabid, and the most intensely interested advocates of high tariff that the agricultural, laboring, and consuming masses do not seem to have studied as closely as it might be profitably studied. Every “trust,” every “combination,” every great corporation, and every monopolistic interest stands like a stone wall in opposition to any revision of the tariff or ' any reduction of the customs duties upon all the articles that are essential to the welfare and the comfort of the masses of the people. ! If you will take a census of them you will find that they are in iavor of reducing the surplus revenues by cheapening whisky and tobacco, but are unalterably opposed to reducing them by cheapening the necessaries of life. Does the farmer look to the “trusts,” the “combinations.” the g'ant corporations, and the interests ’that have grown into grinding monopolies through the operations of a tariff system carried to a manifest excess for the promotion of his interests? Clearly he does not, for his complaints have been ascending against them tor twenty years. While their power has grown, and their wealth has increased, and their arrogance has become next to unendurable his profits have shrunk, and new “shingles” have been nailed upon his real estate by the money lenders. They have suffered what the agricultural I class suffer in all overtaxed countries and j communities—their profits have decreased and their debts have increased, while a limited class have profited enormously at the expense of an immensely larger and more deserving class. When a system of unjust and unnecessary taxation is converted into an engine of genteel and legalized plunder of the many by the few, there can be no community of interest between the plundered and the plunderers. This proposition is too : plain to need any argument. The farmer cannot, consistently with his own interests, advocate the system that serves the purpose of the trust, the combination, and the monopoly. For that system tends only to the concentration of wealth; and the safety, the welfare, and the prosperity of the farmer lie only in its widest diffusion and most equitable distribution.

Of course the farmer is told this year, as he has been told heretofore by the advocates of the tariff, that he is prosperous, and that his marvelous prosperity is the direct result of our war-tariff system. He has had more than twenty years of wartariff taxation in time of peace, and I appeal to him to ask himself about his alleged prosperity, and answer his own question. When he makes his complaint the trust protectionists either tells him that he is on the threshold of fortune through the “home market, ” or that the tariff has saved nim from absolute bankruptcy. Now that he has been standing still or going backward during these twenty odd years, would it not be wise for him to advocate and by intelligent advocacy compel a change, and test the question of a change in results? In a representative Government like ours it is always safe to change a financial and governmental policy that is reasonably suspected of not producing the best attainable results. Even if a mistake is made it is not irreparable, and may be as easily corrected as made. And in this connection it is well enough to note an historical act. Not a change in the direction of the lessening of war taxes has been made in the last twenty years but has been vindicated by ensuing results and approved by the sober judgment of the country. Will any reasonable man pretend to say that there is any possible danger of still further reducing our enormous and unnecessary national revenues and bringing them down to the simple needs of the Government? As a class the laboring men, skilled and unskilled, have been more generally and completely deceived and bamboozled by the protection fetich than any other. With their employers protected against foreign competition and themselves open to the competition of imported contract labor, which has been poured like a many-chan-neled river into every section of the country where there was a large market for labor, they have spent about one-third of the time at hard work and the other twothirds in organizing against their “oppressors” and striking against a reduction of wages, while perhaps a majority of them went regularly to the polls and voted to maintain the system that put them at the mercy of the men who, while deploring the idea that the American workingman should be placed in competition with the “pauper-made” wares of Europe, ransacked the Old World for the “pauper labor” with which they broke the strikes, and by doubling the supply of laborers were able to pit one set of men against the other, and make their special privileges cut like a two-edged sword. But for our vicious tariff system, continued and made more galling after the great national exigency which made it temporarily permissible had passed away, the workingmen of the country would have no “oppressors”—they never had them in any other period of our national history—the country would not be filled with the clamor of strikes, disastrous not only to those engaged in them but to whole communities, and frequently producing national stagnation, and not a ship-load of contract pauper laborers would ever have been imported The-system of fostering a, certain class of industries and stimulating them by a misnamed or at least a deceitful system of protection created a privileged class, who, being relieved from foreign competition, began to grind their employes, and when they rebelled, availed themselves of the double privilege of the free importation of labor to maintain their undue advantage,

not only over their employes, but the whole community. This is the true history of our protective system, stripped of the sophistry of th< protected protectionists, and which is written in twenty years of strikes, often bloody and always destructive and desolating to ! the common interests of the whole community where it occurred. We are told and have been told all along that this system was especially designed, under the guidance of Providence, to make the workingman happy, contented, and prosperous. Has it accomplished its proclaimed purpose? I leave the workingman to answer the question for himself. Ido not believe that he has fought, and organized, and struggled, and suffered, andcomfilained for a score of years for the mere ove of being a disturber. He has been the victim of a bad system, and the beneficiaries of that system, while holding him by the throat, have instilled into his mind the idea that the wiping out of that system would ruin him. As a matter of fact, what is left at the end of twenty years for him to lose? Under the beneficent system which he is called upon to worship and maintain by his vote his cottage has grown dilapidated and degenerated into shreds and patches, while his employer has grown into a millionaire and erected a palace that Lucullus might have envied. t The reason for this is simple enough. I Under a vicious system of excessive taxation, masked with a deceitful name, the actual wealth of the country is being rapidly concentrated in the hands of a few, while the many suffer the inevitable evil effect —and the men who work must drink the dregs of the bitter draught. Have the workingmen, the farmers, the masses of the people any remedy? An easy and a sure one, and as simple as the cause of all their woes. Break the wheels of the Juggernaut of excessive, unneces- I sary class taxation, and the national wealth will readjust itself. It needs no dynamite, no torch, no dagger to deliver the people from the oppression of which they so justly complain. A Congress composed of men who believe in just taxation, equitably distributed, just to all, with special privileges to none, will speedily accomplish the work. The people have listened long enough to the siren sophistries of the protection barons; let them listen to the plain voice of common sense and take counsel with their own interests and elect such a Congress.

Columbus, O.

FREE RAW MATERIALS.

How They Cheapen Goods and Increase Labor. W e constantly receive letters from workingmen asking us to explain this, that, or the other effect of tariff reduction. Here is a question which one of them has asked: “Will the Herald tell me what will be the result to men who work for a living of putting certain raw materials—wool, for instance—on the free list?” Well, first of all, the duty on raw wool is a tax which the man who uses the finished product, the cloth, must pay every time. The manufacturer doesn’t bear the extra cost—why should he? If he can buy his mixing wool at a low figure he can afford to sell whatever he makes at a correspondingly small price. On the other hand, if his raw material is dear, that is your misfortune, for he will have to charge you more or he can’t do business. The duty, or tax, 67 per cent, duty on woolens, is paid by you whenever you buy the manufacturer’s goods. Again, if the cost of raw materials is high the production from them is limited. That is serious. There Is no sense, however, in producing a great deal when only a little can be sold. A man would be an idiot to keep his manufactory running night and day when there is no demand for what he is making. High prices mean a small demand and smaller number of peoEle to buy. Poor folks would like to buy, ut they can’t afford to. They get along without what they need in order to be really comfortable, because their money must go for flour and potatoes. Then, again, when a manufacturer is doing a small business he only wants a few workmen. The moment.you limit his market by increasing the cost of his products you cut down his pay-roll. On the contrary, if he can get bis raw materials so cheaply that everybody can afford to purchase his goods he wants a bigger building; there is work for carpenters and masons; he requires more looms; there is work for machinists; and he wants more hands in his mills every day in the year; then you have good wages and steady work. Prosperous times for laboring men depend on the popular demand for what manufacturers turn into the market. Choke off the production by a tax on raw materials and you not only lessen the number who have work, but you increase the number who are seeking for it and can’t find it— New York Herald.

The Tax on Wool.

Wool is also a necessity, and a very great one. In this trying American climate, with its sudden changes and fierce storms, warin clothing is one of the absolute essentials of comfort and health.' It is also obvious that no class is so much exposed to the rigors of the climate as the laboring people. And yet this is iust the class who now find warm woolen clothing beyond their means. It is this class to whom the piles of cheap, flimsy, half cotton goods on the counters of the merchants are sold. And they buy them because they can afford nothing better. The wife of the laboring man, seeking winter clothing for her children, prices the warm woolen garment, and then with a sigh turns to the shoddy stuff which is within reach of her means. But even for this she often pays a price which would purchase a good garment in other countries, while the purchaser of a better article of clothing knows, if he is at all familiar with facts, that he is paying nearly twice as much for it as it would ccst in London or Liverpool or on the continent. The truth is that we are now ' shearing both the sheep and the people, and the one is about as helpless in the hands of the shearer as the other.— lhe Advance (Chicano).

A Prohibitive Tariff Needed.

Senator Brown, of Georgia, who is clamoring for a war tariff to “protect American labor, ” pays 25 cents per day for men to work in his coal mines. Mr. Brown is evidently fearful that his laborers will only get 15 cents per day if the tariff is cut dpwn- A tariff that would keep such men as the Georgia Senator out of the country is the tiding most needed.—St. Paul Pi-oneer-Press,

W. A. TAYLOR.

INDIANA NEWS.

Attempt to Blow Up a Residence. \ At Richmond an attempt was made to blow up the residence of Mrs. Jessie Craig. Mrs. Hewitt and her four children were also inmates. Mrs. Hewitt was seated in a common wooden chair, near a table, Mrs. Craig was by the stove and three of the children were in bed, when a sudden, loud report shook the building, and thefloor under Mrs. Hewitt surged upward, Mrs. Craig was pitched forward to the floor, and rendered semi-unconscious. The chair on which Mrs. Hewitt sat was split to pieces, and she was knocked senseless. The bed on which the children slept was wrecked, though the children escaped unhurt. Mrs. Hewitt was hurt about the side and arms, and Mrs. Craig slightly bruised. A dynamite cartridge had been exploded in the cellar.

Minor State News. —Ed Chamberlain is a prominent young man living at Reynolds, north of Delphi, and Miss Ida Wittenberg is a bright young lady of 18, living at the same place. Chamberlain has unsuccessfully courted Miss Wittenberg. The other evefling when she returned from singing-school, Chamberlain assaulted her, and after an unsuccessful attempt to overpower her shot her, the ball entering her mouth. She lies in a critical condition. Chamberlain has been captured. There is great excitement over this dastardly assault, the young lady being a member of one of the most prominent families. —James Stewart, a resident of Wabash, was driving along Falls avenue in a spring wagon, when his horse was frightened at seeing a boy walking on stilts. The animal ran away, across the Charley Creek bridge, throwing Mr. Stewart out of the vehicle at the entrance to Falls Cemetery. He was picked up unconscious and carried home. One of his logs was broken at the hip joint, and he was badly cut about the head, besides internal injuries, which, it is believed will terminate fatally. Mr. Stewart is 72 years old, one of the early pioneers of the Wabash valley, and has an extensive acquaintance. —Mrs. Philo Lynch, of Crawford County, is the mother of seven children, all under two years of age. Eighteen months ago she gave birth to triplets and a few days ago she gave birth to two boys and two girls. The mother and children are doing well, but the father has not fully recovered from the shock.

—Jacob Shaffer, aged 8, accidentally shot and instantly killed Jacob Hudlow, aged 11 years, at Walton, ten miles east of Logansport. Shaffer’s father borrowed a target gun with which to shoot rats. Young Shaffer was showing the gun to his playmate, and did not know it was loaded. The ball penetrated the region of the heart —The White Caps flogged two men and a woman at English, Crawford County, recently. The victims were Bob Broomfield, James Sellers and Mrs. Wilson, and the charge against them was that they had been guilty of immoral conduct Broomfield and Sellers were punished quite severely, Broomfield receiving 150 lashes and Sellers 125. Mrs. Wilson* was given only twenty-five lashes, but was warned that unless she reformed she would be given 100 the next time. The three were taken a short distance from town, stripped of their clothing, and tied together to a tree. —The City Council of Terre Haute, has voted $25,000 to begin work on the new Normal School building, and unanimously adopted a resolution binding the State to bear one-half the expenses of rebuilding. —The body of Andrew McLaughlin, of North Vernon, was found in the cistern on his place. He was about 60 years of age and a prominent citizen. —The Comptroller of the Currency has authorized the receiver of the Richmond National Bank, A. D. Lynch, to declare another dividend of 5 per cent., making 61 per cent, in all, with considerable real estate to be realized on yet. —John Gardone, of Harrison County, was fatally hurt by a runaway accident. , Gardone, being caught in the lines, was thrown off and dragged several hundred feet. When extricated his lower limbs were paralyzed, and his head and face cut.

—Charles Pfeiffer has been convicted at Wabash for the murder of W. G. Morse, and given ten years’ imprisonment. —Under pretense of scrubbing out their saloons, saloon-keepers of Indianapolis attempted to evade Sunday closing. Six were arrested. —At Bloomington a father attacked his 18-year-old daughter because she would not give him her wages. He was under the influence of liquor. —A genuine sensation was caused at Bloomington, recently, by the attempt of an irate father to kidnap a bright 18-year-old daughter, which he finally succeeded in doing in the presence of an excited crowd that was afraid to offer resistance. Laura Cole is a handsome young lady, who is an assistant in the family of J. H. Ryers, and for some time the father of the girl has been demanding her wages each week. Finally the girl refused to surrender, and the father threatened to make her return home. This she refused. Miss Laura was walking out on the principal street, when the father, passing in a wagon, noticed her. He stopped at once, and with great vehemence grabbed the surprised girl. She cried for help, but not knowing the c-use of the trouble the bystanders did not interfere. The girl caught hold of a sapling and resisted with all her power, but with threats and curses, and by main force, the girl was dragged into the wagon and driven away as soou as possible amidst great excitement. —Prof. John F. Baird, of Hanover, has been elected pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Charlestown.