Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1890 — INDIANA HAPPENINGS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA HAPPENINGS.

events and incidents that have V LATELY OCCURRED -An Interesting Summary of the More Important Doings of Our Neighbors—Wedding* and Draths—Crime. Casualties and General News Notes. A Brutal Murder. Mrs. Charles Wheland was found brutally murdered in the suburbs of New Albany. The killing had been evidently done with a hatchet. A frightful gash in the head toldthe story. Mrs. Wheland had been living with her sister, Mrs. Henry Ritter, and the latter’s husband. The house was near by where the murdered woman was found. Ritter was arrested and lodged in jail, saying: ■“I was too drunk to do anything like that,” before any crime was charged. He bears the marks of scratches, as if ‘the woman had defended herself. Mrs. Ritter, who is ill in one room of the cottage, while the murdered corpse lies in the only other one, sifter refusing to say anything, at last stated that Ritter and Mrs. Wheland quarreled early in the morning, and she fled, he following her, and returning in a few minutes to bed. This is all she will say, but the bruised body tells the tale of awful brutality, and is marked all over with blue spots. It is believed that the attempt at another crime led to the murder. Ritter bears a hard name. The dead woman’s husband is of good Kentucky family, which has always refused to recognize her. He -only visited her on Sundays and his whereabouts are unknown.

Minor Slate Items. —Bloomington will erect a new school building to cost $16,000. —The Western Glass Company has begun operations at Marion. —Eighty old soldiers have thus far been rece ieved at the Marion Home. —Frank Edwards ,of Evansville, was drowned while ratting in Green River. —A plumber named Bradway, at Fort Wayne, sneezed so hard that he broke a rib. —William Sudduth, of New Albany, dropped dead on the street from heart disease. —A son of Deputy Surveyor J. F. Meighan lost a leg at South Bend while attempting to board a train. —The City Marshal of Brazil has given the saloon-keepers notice that the selling of liquor to minors must be stopped. —Mrs. Emeline Cash fell to the floor at her home at Richmond and expired in a few minutes. Congestion of the lungs was the cause of death.

Mrs. Daniel Brumbaugh has brought suit against the city of Montpelier for $3,000 damages, suffered in falling through a sidewalk last fall. —George Haller, of St. Meinrad, jumped from a moving train nt New Albany. An arm and several ribs were broken, and he was injured internally. —Prof. Harvey Young, of Hanover College, has just completed analyzing the water of the Madison gas well, No. 4, finding valuable medicinal qualities. —The jury in the Miami Circuit Court, in the case of Mrs. Dr. Claire Taylor, charged with criminal practice on a 13-year-old Dunkard girl, returned a verdict of not guilty. —ln the western part of Bartholomew County robins are appearing by thousand sand have a regular roost. They are of unusual size, very fat, and are being slain by the hundreds by the inhabitants . —John Wells was precipitated one hundred feet by the breaking of a rope while he was being lowered into a coalhole near Vincennes. He struck forty feet of water, and was but slightlv injured.

—John Baker, of Daviess County, was recenty bitten by a rabid dog, but hydrophobia has not developed. Several horses and hogs have been lost through rabies there, and about fifty dogs have been slaughtered. —John Milton Steenberger, who came to Bartholmew County with his parents in 1820, and who has resided in German Township for seventy years on one farm, died at his family residence, at the age of 74 years. —Gen. Lew Wallace has presented Eddie Brandkampt, a blind musician at Crawfordsville, a copy of “Ben-Hur,” printed in raised letters. The work makes two volumes, each the size of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. —The large grain-cradle and scythesnath factory of T. C. Fisher, which burned at Anderson, will be rebuilt and enlarged at once. Mr. Fisher began life there without a dollar, and he is to-day one of the most successful business meh of the city. —Mrs. Henry Hamer, of South Bend, was fatally burned by the explosion of a gasoline stove, caused by filling the stove with kerosene instead of gasoline. Her back, arms, thighs, and lower limbs were burned nearly to a crisp, the nails snd skin on her hands and wrists coming off. —The fine large barn belonging to J. W. Scaggs, living near Martinsville, burned with its entire contents, consisting of six horses, two cows, a thresh-ing-machine, four buggies, four hundred bushels of corn, hay and all farming implements. Loss, $3,590; no insurance. _•

—Fort Wayne is making an effort to secure the National Convention of Railway Surgeons in 1891. —The right eye of the 3-year-old son of Joseph Moniac was burned out, at his home, in Stringtown, Clay County. The little fellow was playing with a number of other children, and was peeping through a small hole in the door, when one of his playmates pushed a hot poker through the hole. —Miss Lizzie Miller, while waiting upon Mrs. J. W. Clapp, at New Market, Clark County, fainted and fell into the fire-place, and she was horribly and fatally burned. Robert Clapp, aged 9, finally succeeded in dragging her from the fire-place, and in extinguishing her blazing clothing. —Mrs. George King, of Columbus has brought suit against the Pennsylvania Railway Company for being forcibly ejected from a car because the limit on her round-trip ticket had expired. She took the next train on the road, the ticket being accepted by the Superintendent. She claims $20,000 damages. —Wm. Cravens committed suicide by taking poison at Mt. Vernon. He was a member of the G. A. R., and had been despondent over the fact that his claim for back pay had not been allowed by the Pension Department, with the fact that he was in love with a young lady who had given him encouragement, but who refused to marry hjm until his pension came. --- - —Martin Rich, night watchman at the factory of the LaPorte Wood Manufacturing Company, was found dead in the engine-room, with the side of his head crushed in the other morning. He is the second who has been found dead in this factory in three years, the former, being burned to death. There are suspicions of foul play, but the general opinion is that the old man met death from falling off a ladder while turning a valve over the boiler. Sheridan Stoner, the man who murdered William Bolles at a Farmers’ Alliance meeting, near Lexington, a few weeks ago, received his death blow at the jail at Scottsburg, at the hands of a fellow-prisoner, John Rayburn, awaiting trial on the charge-of forgery. Rayburn had improvised a saw and was attempting to cut his way out when Stoner gave the alarm. Turning about, Ray-, burn struck a savage blow over the head, fracturing his skull.

- A terrible disaster occurred at Indianapolis during a tire in the large book establishment of the BowenMerrill Company. When the tire was about extinguished the roof fell in carrying with it the three floors to the basement below. A large force of firemen Mere on the roof and inside the building at the time, and twelve were killed outright and twenty-five injured, many of whom will die. This is the worst calamity that ever befell that city. —The saw-mill owned by Thomas Vandever, at Brookfield, was blown up with dynamite. The engine, machinery and building are a total wreck. The dynamite was placed under the boiler. A letter was found, tacked to a saw-log, warning Mr. Vandever to be careful in the future, or he would be sent to hell in a minute. Some two week? ago some one poisoned a horse belonging to Vandever. The reason for thus persecuting Mr. Vandever is not known. His loss is $2,000. —AI Swadener, engineer on the Panhandle, saved the life of a 3-year-old girl in Hartford City, recently. The train was pulling up the grade at a rapid rate, when Swadener saw the little one seated on the end of a tie against the track. He climed out of his cab and got to the baby just in time to push it away from the rails as he stood on the pilot. The heroic and clever act was witnessed by several people from the depot. The frantic mother picked up her child a few moments later, while the engineer coolly climed back into the cab, as if saving babies from being smashed under the wheels of his engine was a part of his business. —The Supreme Court has rendered a decision in the three cases comiqg up from as many circuits, and each involving the constitutionality of some part of the school-book law, the Judges being divided in their opinions, but the majority sustaining the constitutionality of the law. Judge Elliott wrote the majqjity opinion, and held for the law on the ground that it in no way interferes with local self-government. Judge Berkshire dissented on the ground that the constitution declares that the General Assembly shall not grant to any citizens or class privileges or immunities which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens. —A case which has attracted more than ordinary interest has been on trial in the Circuit Court at South Bend, on a change of venue from Elkhart County. Two years ago, at Elkhart, in a quarrel between Rem Scott and Con Crowly, the latter was fatally stabbed by Scott, who barely escaped being lynched at the time. He was tried for murder, and sentenced to a term of years in State's prison. The widow of Crowly then brought suit against Scott for SIO,OOO damages for causing the death of her husband. Both sides employed the best legal talent, and the case was hotly contested. The jury brought in a verdict of SIOO and costs in favor of the plaintiff. Scott being a non-resident of the State at the time the crime was committed was in his favor.