Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1889 — INDIANA HAPPENINGS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA HAPPENINGS.

EVENTS AND INCIDENTS THAT HAVE LATELY OCCVBBED. An Interesting Summary of the More Important Doings of Our Neighbors—We<lilinfs an<l Deaths—Crime, Casualties and General News Notes. The Northern Prison. The report for the State Prison North for the year ending Oct. 31 has heen submitted to Gov. Hovey. The receipts were §113,601.85, and to this was added a balance of $9,012.64 from last year’s report, giving a total of $122,644.49. The expenditures for all purposes were $99,976.97, leaving a balance of $22,667.52. The number of convicts received exceeded by forty-six those of 1888. An electric system of lighting has been introduced into the prison by the Fort Wayne Jenney company, at a cost of $9,400, which will be paid out of the institution’s surplus earnings. To get rid of the cost of coal a plant has been constructed for burning crude oil, and an oil-tank with a capacity of 42,800, gallons has been placed outside the prison. Among the improvements now nearing completion is the remodeling and enlargement of the hospital. The Board or Directors advocates the enlargement of the dining-room and school, and the macadamizing of the prison approaches. The sewer for which the last General Assembly appropriated SIO,OOO, to be constructed from the prison to Lake Michigan, will be ■completed in the early spring. On the subject of prison reform the Directors point out that although the present policy is humane, there remains much to be done. The parole system stands in need of some wholesome legislation, and they recommend theenactment of a law modeled after that of Ohio, but with its provisions extended so as to include life-prisoners. The law enacted by the last General Assembly making twenty-five years a life-sentence does not meet with the approval of the directors. They, therefore, urge the necessity of oreating a board of prison managers who shall visit, at regular intervals, the convicts, and parole any who, in their judgment, may be fit to return to society. There are at present in the prison 748 convicts, seventy-seven of whom are murderers. Patents Issued to Indiana Inventors. Patents have been granted to Indiana inventors as follows: Thomas Austin, Logansport, sand-box valve; Henry 0. Bailey, Edinburg, wooden mat and blank slitting machine; Albert J. Hart, Cromwell, traction engine; William A. Horrall, assignor of one-half to J. C. Beltheimer, Washington, mail-pouch fastener; Charles D. Jenny, Indianapolis, assignor to Thompson-Houston Electric Company, of Connecticut, automatic regulator for dynamos; John A. McGill, South Bend, railway gate or signal; John F. Miller, Monon, calfweaner; Clark B. Nelson, assignor of one-half to J. B. Watson. Crawfordsville, metallic crest-title; John S. Patmore, assignor of one-half to J. B. Dolan, Terre Haute, three-wheeled vehicle; Robert E. Poindexter, Indianapolis, saw gage jointer. Minor State Items. —While eating supper at the home of his sister-in-law, Mrs. Elwood Hiatt, two miles east of Winchester, Anderson Hiatt, unmarried, choalted to death. —Six horses were cremated in the burning barn of J. W. Warbritton, near Newmarket, Montgomery County. —William Liebfried, a switchman, was caught between the bumpers and severely crushed at Columbus. —Land-slides between Elmora and Seymour have stopped work on the new Evansville and Richmond road. —Martin Jackson, a boy 14, attempted 4o board a moviug freight train at Franklin, and his leg was amputated. —James Brown, a colored farm-hand, was found dead in the woods near Edingburg, having blown his brains out. —Col. Thomas Morton, of Anderson, has put in a claim to being the oldest pensioner on the rolls. He served in the Mexican and civil wars. —Fred Collis was thrown from a train between Martinsville and Spencer, while stealing a ride, and his right leg was brokenin the knee joint. —Martin McCrey.a farmer,was at Edenburg in a road wagon and while returning, and within one mile of his home, dropped dead from heart disease. —Richard Hopkins, a young farmer of Greenfield Township, Lagrange County, was found dead beneath his horses’ feet in his barn.. He had died of heart disease. —While walking across a trestle at Rochester, George W. Mace, a conductor on the Chicago & Atlantic, was struck by a train and dangerously injured. —The powder horn carried by the famous Tecuraseh has been presented to Huff Post, G. A, R., by William Morris, of Lawrenceburg, son of the once noted “Indian Bill" Morris. —A farmers' institute has been organized at Goshen, the idea being to control local markets and secure co-opera-tion among the members. H. L. Bar“tholemew was elected President. —The city officials of Kokomo have commenced a crusade against the gambling dives and houses of prostitution. ‘Several arrests have been made, followed by convictions and heavy fines.

—Mrs. Jefferson Clarke, an invalid, was found dead in her bed at Greencastle. —Otto Zeigler, a young business man of Shelbyville, had a narrow escape from death by taking a large quantity of &nlphate of zinc for epsom salts. —While out hunting rabbits with a party of friends, near Crawfordsville, CAarles Ellis was accidently shot by John Stull, and died from the injuries received. Both Ellis and Stall are young men, and neither is married. The citizens of Delphia do not propose to give up the hunt for natural gas. Four wells have been sunk, a little gas having been found in the last two wells, and enough stock has been subscribed to sink the fifth well. The next effort will be made one-half mile south of the city. —Mary Ellen Hauser, aged 18, was seriously stabbed in the breast with a pair of shears in the hands of her cousin, John Bennett, aged 12. The girl’s grandmother, Rachel Ann Haysdale, had attempted to correct her with her crutch, and was thrown on a hot stove in the scuffle. She called for held and the boy answered, attacking the girl with the shears. —A distressing case of affliction is reported from Mary’s Station, Rush County, in tho family of the late Albert Rhodes, who has just died of typhoid fever. Of thirteen children only one was able to attend the funeral of the father, all the others being confined to their beds by the same disease. The mother succumbed to the terrible malady and was buried one day last week. —Hunters from Montpelier discovered a covey of white quail on the Slocum farm in the northeastern part of Blackford County. Whether the quail are albinos or the Mediterranean quail, imported to this country from Egypt several years ago, is yet to be determined. Prominent sportsmen will go after the white quail again. They are considerably larger than theiother quail in that section. —When Mrs. Geo. Maxwell, residing in New Albany, awoke the other morning, she discovered that some time during the night she had rolled over upon her 2-months-old babe. The child died soon after being taken up. Mrs. Maxwell is almost crazed with grief. The coroner investigated the affair, and decided that the death of the infant was due to accidental suffocation. —Two old farmers from Saluda, fifteen miles below Madison, went to town and became intoxicated. One of them, named Samples, was put in jail and the other, Enoch Robinson, started home with a team of horses, which ran away, throwing Robinson out, breaking his arm, inflicting frightful gashes on his head, and otherwise injuring him severely and possibly fatally. He is unconscious. —The marriage at Fort Wayne, some months since of little May Islett, a school girl of 14 years, to David Bnrnie, a railroad engineer, has resulted very disastrously to the youthful bride and her family. Her father had the marriage set aside, and her mother, espousingthe case of Burnie, the house of Islett was so bitterly divided against itself that the mother has lost her reason, Tim father, resorting to drink, has served several sentences in jail, and little May and her sister were turned out of doors for failure to pay the rent. —At Shelbyville while the plumbers were at work in the confectionery store of Seth Sparks, an explosion of natural gas took place which did great damage to the building. Sparks’s goods were badly damaged, and the rear end of the house was blown out. The barber shop of Turner Castetter was a wreck,and the front door was blown into the street. One of the men sitting in a barber’s chair was elevated to the ceiling. The large glass cases in Peter Fettig’s harness shop were ruined, and in Charles Cheney’s saloon considerable damage was done. —William Marquise, a lad aged 18, was arrested at a district school a few miles north of Peru, by Chief Detective Furlong and Collett, of the Wabash Railway, charged with having caused the wreck of train No. 44, fast express east bound, at Keller’s, in October last, and in which no one was killed. The boy has confessed it as spite work, solely from being refused to ride from Wabash to Peru, claiming he lost his ticket. He walked to Keller’s and there spiked the switch, then proceeded homeward. His parents are wealthy people. He was taken to Wabash jail. —J. H. Cook, mailing clerk in the Crawfordsville postoffice, belonged to Company K, Eighteenth Indiana Regiment, which had charge of Jeff Davis from Saturday evening, immediately after his capture, until noon next day. Mr. Cook was First Lieutenant, and the company took Davis from Augusta down the river five miles, where he was delivered to a vessel that carried him to prison. He said that Davis never said one word to any person except to his wife and daughter, who were along, but spent most of thetime 1 in rsadingNorthern newspapers. Davis, just after the battle of Buena Vista, in Mexico, remarked that the Indiana soldier was a coward. The soldiers would often say, in the hearing of Jeff Davis,, to “remember Buena Vista;” but Davis never paid any attention to them. Winnie Davis, the daughter, was always ready to make some answer, and she would give the soldier “fits.”