Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — Page 6

f(jc jiemortAticSf ntinrl - RENSSELAER, INDIANA. J. Vi. McEWEN, - - - Potoishm.

SIAM AND ITS PEOPLE.

FACTS ABOUT THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT. OnK, of the Difficulty Betwea flrmi and Slam—Extent of the ttmmtmm Kor jrtre—lts Great Natural Wealth lUCag*tal the Oriental Venice. Coveted by the Ihath, The trouble between Slam and France, is only another phase of the ever-recurring and never-ending Eastern question, the difference between this and former appearances being that in this case the trouble broke out a little farther east than nsuaL For over 200 years the French have been longing for an Eastern empire. In the time of Louis XIV. the dream of empire seemed about to be realized, and but for the almost accidental formation of a company of English traders the Empire of India might have teen French instead of English. The marvelous growth of the East India Company, the equally marvelous success of its srmed agents in Hindostan, pnt an end to the French hopes, and until the present generation little or nothing was accomplished. About 1787 the French, however, established a foothold in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, and by treaty with the government of Cochin China acquired the island of Pulo Gondola and the right to establish a station on the main land. The right, however, was never exercised until 1815, when, a dispute arising between the French and the government of Cochin China, Saigon, the capital, was occnpied, and the whole of Cochin China became a French province. In 1862 further conquests began, and the surrounding country began to suffer. In the following year the kingdom of

Cambodia was formally taken under the protection of France, which then began to extend its dominions still further to the north. In 1884 trouble broke out, or was provoked, it matters not which, between the people of Tonquin and the French, and after a bloody struggle this country, then a dependency of China, was made a French province. This left the two French possessions in this part of Asia widely separated, and in order to consolidate them the coast territory lying between them and known as Anam was taken possession of. The area of Cochin China is estimated at 23,000 square miles, and its population at 2,000,000.

KING OF SIAM.

Cambodia an area of 38,000 square miles and aD estimated population of 1,800,000. Tonquln has an estimated area of 34,000 square miles and a population of 9,000,000, while Anam has 46,000 square miles of area and 5,000,000 inhabitants, the aggregation of all these giving a very fair start for a colonial empire. To the west of this territory lies the valley of the great river Menang, which, rising in Thibet, over 2,000 miles away, flows with many windings in a general southeastern course

A DETACHMENT OF SIAMESE ARTILLERY.

through Thibet, a portion of China, a part of British Burmah and Siam, passing through the French dominions just before entering the sea. The Menang is the greatest river in that part of Asia, both in the length of its course and the volume of Its waters, comparing favorably with the Ganges, the Indus or Brahaaa-Maotra. The French found that the posfesskm of the coast lying to the east of the river was of little value without the river valley itself, and accordingly, to secure possession of this valuable

,to the east bank of the Menang and all Its islands. The limits of Siam on the north and east have always been rather in definite, for to the north, adjoining British Burmah, there lay a number of semi-independent states, which sometimes owned allegiance to Siam and sometimes to Burmah, as the influence of one or the other preponderated. The same difficulty existed in the east, where the Anamites sometimes paid tributo to China and sometimes to Siam. Siam itself has in times past been a dependency of

the Chinese Empire, and even now a sort of allegiance is acknowledged and a tribute paid. So far as the Siamese territory can be estimated, its ut most limits at the time of its greatest extent were about 1,200 miles from north to south and 700 miles in width, or very nearly one-third the size of the United States. That, however, was before the English conquests In Burmah, which considerably reduced the nominal size of the empire. Its present area is estimated at 250,000 square miles, while

RIVER HOUSES IN BANGKOK.

It has a population of 2,000,000 Siamese, 2,000,000 Luosians, and 1,000,000 each of Chinese or Malays. Government of Slam. The Government of Siam is in some respects much likethatof other countries having a limited monarchy, while in one particular it is curiously different. There are two Kings, a first find a second, each of whom has a state establishment, but only one is honored as a sovereign, the other acting as a sort of Prime Minister. The whole country is divided into districts, the government of each being administered by a local official who Is Siamese, or Luosian,* r Malay, according to the prominence of people of these nationalities in the population. The reigning King is Chulaloog Kom 1., known also as Somdetch Phra Paraminde Maha, who ascended the throne in 1868, and who governs by means of a council of six Princes and from ten to twenty members appointed by himself. Nominally a limited monarchy, there are so many ways of setting aside the established laws of the kingdom that, although the Siamese call themselves the Thai, “the free,” and their kingdom the Muung Thai, “the free kingdom,” they are practically under the same kind of government as most other Asiatics.

The King of Siam Is, comparatively speaking, a rich monarch, having an annual revenue Bomewhat exceeding £2,000,000, of which sum £287,000 come from the land taxes, £65,000 from the taxes on fruit trees, £IOO,000 from the spirit tax, £120,000 from the opium tax, £IOO,OOO from the gambling tax, £143,000 from the customs duties, £90,000 from the tin tax, £27,000 from the tax on edible birds’ nests, and about the same amount from the fisheries tax. As all the taxes are, however, farmed out, and Siamese tax farmers are no more honest than the people of the same business in other parts of the world, his Majesty of Siam loses no •mall sum annually from the peculations and embezzlements of hts agents, and it Is even asserted that scarcely more than half the amount due reaches the royal coffers. He probably makes up the difference in the personal service exacted from all Siamese natives, every Siamese in-

habitant of the kingdom being required, If called upon, to give at least three months’ labor in the year to his sovereign. Tho result may be beneficial, so far as the King is concerned, but as he frequently calls for this service at a time when the crops should be planted, or cultivated, or gathered, the result is far from beneficial to either the agriculture or the general prosperity of the kingdom. A similar state of things prevails in regard to military service, all the inhabitant* being required to render it, exceptions, however, being made in

AMAZONS OF THE HAREM GUARD.

i favor of the priests; of the Chinese, who are taxed Instead; of slaves; of governmentofficials, and of those who are willing and able to purchase exemption by hiring a substitute. Tho whole kingdom is practically' therefore) at the King’s command both in time of peace and of war, and although it is, in some respects, one of the richest countries on the globe, its natural advantages lie unimproved, and a territory almost the size of Texas has thus an annual export of only about $12,000,000 a year, consisting mostly of rice, tea, pepper, and other tropical products. Bangkok a Singular City. Bangkok, the capital, is in many respects a singular city. Its popula. tion Is estimated all the way from 500,000 to 1,000,000, and is curiously mixed and cosmopolitan. Siamese and Chinese predominate in its streets, though the Malays are also very numerous, and frequent Europeans in Its streets demonstrate the presence of Western civilization and interest. They are, in fact, the leaven of Siam, and to their Influence and the spread of Western Ideas are due the various improvements noticeable in the great city, from which political power proceeds to the utmost boundaries of Siam. The army is officered by Europeans, chiefly English and Danes, the navy is commanded by European®, and of the many business enterprises in Siam, most of those which connect it with the outside world arc superintended by EUtopeans. There Is little love lost, jiowever, between the native and foreign elements of society, and the intense hatred felt for all foreigners by the large Chinese population may at any moment prove disastrous to all foreign interests. English, French, German, Russian are all alike to the low-class Chinamen, who cannot distinguish between their languages, and all are hated alike. There is every reason to believe, therefore that the presence of a hostile fleet in the river may at any time excite the passions of the populace to an uncontrollable degree, and mob violence in the East has a meaning which is unknown in Western lands.

Bangkok is the Eastern Venice. Formerly all its houses were built on the land, but the p evidence of cholera many years ago so alarmed the Government that it ordered the houses on the banks to be abandoned and directed the people to live on the river itself. Thousands upon thousands of houses were consequently built on rafts aud moored to the banks of tho river, and although the policy of river houses has been to some extent modified by the Government, no inconsiderable part of the capital Is still on the waters of the Menam. The houses are of slight materials, constructed on ..bamboo rafts, each attended by a canoe,’ for to the river resident of Bangkok a skiff is as indispensable as a street car to the suburban resident iq an American city. Formerly the right to build on the banks was reserved to the king, nobility, clergy and privileged characters. This right has been greatly extended and now Bangkok has spread its limits on both sides of the Menam. The most striking features of the city are the palaces and the temples. The former are located in a citadel securely fortified against sudden attack or prolonged siege, and comprise the palaces of the two kings and a variety of temples and other structures pertaining to the court. As the first king has about 5,000 women attached to the court in one capacity or another, the palaces are, as may be conjectured, very roomy. Prominent among the at.

THE MOST FAMOUS TEMPLE IN SIAM.

tendants are the amazon guards of the harems. They are women trained to—-the arms and employed to gua/d the Ring’s wives, and whenever a lady of the harem appears in public, she is attended by a retinue of these female soldiers, who answer with their lives for her seclusion. Several very magnificent temples are within the limits of the palace walls, the most remarkable being that of the “Sleeping Idol” and that of the “Emerald Idol.” The Sleeping Idol is a statue 150 feet long, overlaid from head to foot with plate gold, in many places covered with inscriptions and representations of the transmigrations of Buddha. Not far away is the palace of the White Elephant, who is really a deity, and throughout Siam is reverenced as such. He has his court, his attendants, his throngs of servants, and is treated like a prince. The White Elephant is an albino, not completely white, but here and there having spots of cream color over his otherwise dusky hide. The Emerald Idol’s temple is a wonderful structure, of the utmost magnificence, the doors and much of the wall being plated with gold. The idol itself is said to he a solid emerald 12 inches high by 8 wide, the hair and dress of the rude figure being made of gold studded with precious gems. In spite of their barbarous magnificence, however, the pagodas of Bangkok present a wonderfully impressive appearance, as, situated in large parks and covered with porcelain p’ates and decorated with bells which sway to and fn? chiming with every breeze, they gleam through the tropical foliage and suggest that a people which could build such shrines as these should not bs designated as savages; for, although their civilization may be different from ours, it is nevertheless off a*kindi that, perhaps suits them quite as welL

The mosquito gives you some musio and then, takes up a collection for it —Galveston News.

THEY STRUCK IT RICH.

Six Men Who in Five Year# Have Made •180,000,000. Napoleon Bonaparte, Lucien, Leonidas, Alfred, Lewis, Cassius, Andrus. These historic names denote individually and respectively the seven sons of old Lewis H. Merritt, who, iD 1850, left his home in Onondaga County, N. Y., and moving out to the head of Lake Superior with his family settled in a little village then known as Oneota, but now forming a part of Duluth. The old man and the boys worked together on a farm and between them ran a little saw mill in spriDg before farm work had commenced. In the winter the boys went to school. Leonidas at 16 put a pack on his back

ALFRED, CASSIUS, AND LEONIDAS MERRITT.

and walked to Minneapolis, where he went to work in a shingle mill. After the war he worked in a saw mill and as a sailor on the lakes. Alfred Merritt was driving a team in the lumber woods when 15 years old. In 1865 he shipped as a sailor, which work he kept at until he went in with his brother “Lon” to explore the lumber regions. He worked at whatever he could find to do untiljie saved enough money for a trip Into the woods. These two brothers are to-day Vice President and President of the Duluth, Mesaba and Northern Railroad, besides owning the major part of the stock of most of the big iron mines on the range. Cassius C. Merritt, Treasurer of the railroad, taught school for a while, ran a lumber scow, clerked in a grocery store, cut cordwooi in Pokegema Bay, Wis., worked on a farm and “cruised” for pine timber until 1882, when be went Into the pinclands business for himself. The early lives of these brothers are a sample of those of the others, all but one of whom are in the same line of business—pine and iron lands. The one exception, Lucien F., is pastor of a Methodist Church at Duluth. TJje Merritt boyg&ept their eyes open for iron ore. They 7 spent years looking for it, and they found it. Then they pre-empted or bought the land where it was. Their confidence begot faith in men who had money, and they organized mining companies to get out the ore. The railway was built This was only five years ago, and at that time the Merritt boys were in debt. To-day they are worth $180,000,000. They are just completing enormous docks at Duluth, and arc engaged building a terminal track which will render them practically independent of other railways in the shipment of their ore.

The Prevailing Stupidity.

The misfortunes of Mr. Onesime Mathieu, who put $1,200 in a rubber shoe which he hid so securely that he was tho only person who could not find it, his quest for it and the arrest of a man charged with converting to his own use the strange receptacle and its contents, were told in the Transcript yesterday. They point a moral, and for anybody but Mr. Mathieu they adorn a tale. The moral is that people who will not trust banks with their money have unlimited confidence in rubber shoes, old coffee-pots, and stoves. A few weeks ago a very aged and very penurious woman, a resident of a New Jersey town, where she dwelt alone with her conscience and seventeen cats, was taken sick, and on a search of her house being made by the friends who rallied round her, mopey and valuables to a considerable amount were found in a rusty old coffee-pot on the top shelf of a cupboard. Quite recently two maiden ladies in Maine, or Michigan, or Minnesota, it matters not which, forgot that they kept their money in a stove and started a tire on a chilly day, to the immediate reduction of their available cash assets.

A few years ago a hotelkeeper In Southern Massachusetts thought it was the part of wisdom to save up gold. He had quite a golden store, together with a comfortable quantity of greenbacks, under his feather bed when his hotel burned down. The gold melted, but the greenbacks went up in smoke, and, as they did not lea.ve their numbers or other means of identification behind them, were a total loss. Possibly the fact that no one ever heard of a rubber shoe or coffee pot or cook stove plundering a bank aud running off to Canada may make them favorites with those who are chronically distrustful, as otherwise the preference for them as places of deposit for money is quite inexplicable. The use of money by a good many heavy capitalists, who think themselves very smart in adding to to financial distrust and distress by putting it away in safe-deposit tins, is not much brighter, for they are only lengthening out their loss of interest all the while.—Boston Transcript.

The Way It Goes.

In the analytical novel character is not allowed to speak for Itself; the author considers it his office to supply motives for' the simple act* “Truth” gives an amusing example a, the style now in vogue: TelluLa walked into the garden. Here wsw shown a distinctive trait of the girl's character. It will he observed that Tellula walked into the garden. Other women might have acted differently under the same circumstances. They might have run into the garden or crawled or jumped into the garden. Tellula did not. She walked into the garden. It is by such developments of hidden impulses that character can be gauged. In this connection it is exceedingly important to note that Tellula walked into the garden. She did not walk over it or under it or around it or across it* No, her physical and mental and moral structure did notadraitofsuch possibilities. Casting aside the vagaries, the whims, the petty caprices of her sex, she walked into the garden. Ah, how every act of our lives leaves its impress on the character: j

This fact could hardly be demonstrated more forcibly than by Tellula’s action in walking into the garden. She might have walked into a garden —any garden. But she didn’t. Not much. ‘ She walked into the garden. How pregnant with possibilities is this subtle distinction on Tellula’s part! Finally, in order to gain a clear understanding of the girl’s character, the reader will observe that Tellula walked into the garden. Alas! How many women might have walked into the duck pond or the corn bin or the pig pen! Tellula did not. She walked into the garden. We may wonder at the young girl’s insight into the true nature of things, and her marvelous judgment; but then it must be remembered that Tellula was not an ordinary girl.

In the Far North.

The whole region is one of severe cold, and the sea is frozen over the greater part of the year, land and water becoming almost indistinguishable, but for the incessant movement and drift of the sea ice. In summer the sea ice breaks up into floes, which may drift away southward and melt, or be driven by the winds against the shores of continents or Islands, leaving lanes of open water which a shift of wind may change and close in an hour. Icebergs launched from the glaciers of the land also drift with the tide, current and wind through the more or less open water. Possibly at some times the pack may open and a clear waterway run through to the pole, and old whalers tell of many a year when they believed that a few days’ steaming would carry them to the end of the world, if they could have seized the opportunity. At other times routes traversed in safety time after time may be effectively closed for years, and all advance barred. Food in the shape of seal or walrus in the open water, reindeer, musk ox, polar bears or birds on the land may often be procured, but these sources eannot be relied upon. Advance northward may be made by water in a ship, or by dog-sledge, or on foot, over the frozen snow or ice. Each method has grave drawbacks. Advance by sea is stopped when the young ice forms in autumn, and land advance is hampered by the long Arctic night, which enforces months of inaction, more trying to health ancl spirits than the severest exertion.—McClure’s Magazine.

Cornered.

Naturally I was pleased when the hostess led up and introduced me to the prettiest girl in the room. And I was agreeably surprised when the young lady gave me a gracious smile and claimed me as an old acquaintance, frankly adding that it was needless to introduce us—unless I had forgotten her. And I had. “If I ever met you before, it must have been in the dark,” I thought to myself. For how could I have failed to remember her? I have a very fine memory for that sort of face. I had not caught her name. I could not place her. So I put a bold face on and remarked, unblushingly: “No, indeed, I have not forgotten you! But I thought a second introduction might be safer. I did not care to hope that your memory was as good as mine.” 1 could see by the young lady’s expression that this little speech “went.” It was accepted at its face value, and I was beginning to congratulate myself on my presence of mind—-for social lying does not come easy to me—when the womanly curiosity of the hostess led her to investigate. “How funny! So you and Jenny have met before?” she inquired. “Oh, yes,” I answered, promptly. Then she deliberately floored me with the point blank question, “Where?”—Harper’s Bazar.

“The Lost Chord.”

A touching life story is told in connection with this popular song. Only a few months after Sir Arthur Sullivan had accepted an important position in a school for music, his brother Frederick, an actor of note, fell fatally ill. For nearly three weeks the young composer watched by the sick man’s bedside night and day. One evening, when the end was rapidly approaching, the sufferer had for a time sunk into a peaceful sleep, and as his faithful attendant was sitting as usual by the bedside it chanced that he took up some verses of the late Miss Adelaide Proctor, with which he had some years previously been much impressed. Now in the stillness of the night he read them over again, and almost as he did so he conceived their “musical equivalent.” A sheet of music paper was at hand, and he began to write. Slowly the music grew and took shape until, becoming absorbed in it, he determined to finish the song, thinking that even if in the cold light of day it should appear worthless it would at least have helped to pass the weary hours, and so he went on till the last bar was added. Thus was composed a song, the sale of which up to the' present time has exceeded a quarter of a million of copies.

The Distance of Thunder.

Although lightning and thunder oceur always simultaneously, an interval of shorter or longer duration is usually observed between these two phenomena, which is due to the Tact that sound travels only at the the rate of 1,100 feet per second, while the passage of light is almost instantaneous. Based upon this fact it is an easy matter to tell at least approximately how many miles a thunderstorm is away. A normal pulse will beat about one stroke to the second, and by counting the pulse beats during the intervals of the lightning and the thunder the lapse of seconds is arrived at, and consequently the number of feet, which can be reduced to miles. For example: If thirty seconds elapse between the flash of the lightning and the crash of thunder the storm center is at a distance ®f 33,000 feet, or About six and a half miles. An almost accurate calculation can be made by using a watch with a minute dial.—St Louis Post-Dis-patch.

Cigars for Soldiers.

ltaiiau soldiers are allowed cigars as a part of their dally rations.

THE BLIND IMMORTAL.

John Milton, the Sightless Author of England’* Great Epic. “The glory dies not and the grief is past.” Of all men the latter may be said, for the greatest human sorrow terminates at death; but there are

JOHN MILTON.

Avon being forgotten by mankind, nor can we think that the great author of “Paradise Lost" shall ever be deprived of the meed of immortality which so many generations have awarded him. The life of Milton, like the lives of many other great men of genius, was unhappy. Like Byron and Burns he was fondled for years; like Byron and Burns he was neglected. He suffered penury and political disappointment and domestic affliction and physical privation—blindness—but he had faith in his genius, in his destiny, and he wove amid the storms of calamity the wreath of undying fame. His character changed not “Such as it was,” says Lord Macaulay in his admirable essay on Milton, “when, on the eve of great events he returned from his travels in the prime of life and manly beauty, loaded with literary distinctions and glowing with patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, after having experienced every calamity which is incident to

MILTON’S HOUSE, YORK STREET, LONDON.

our nature, old, poor, sightless and disgraced, he returned to his hovel to die.” Milton was born in London in 1608, and received a good education. He was intended for the ministry, but he was out of sympathy with the church government of the time and refused to take orders. And thus, without a profession and with no definite prospects, he returned to the i home of his father, who by this time :had removed to Hoi ton,' Buckinghamshire County. Here he wrote i several of his poems, “L’AUegro,” “Penseroso,” “Arcades,” “Cornus” and ;“Lycidas.” After six years he went ;on a visit to the continent. Ho was i received with great honors in Italy, land it was then he conceived the ■idea of writing a great epic poem 'that would win him immortality. He ! was interrupted in these musings by ‘political turmoil in England, and he returned home in 1639. He entered ioto the political and religious disputes of the day, espousing the cause ■of the people in their conflict with the King and antagonizing the episcopacy. In 1649 King Charles was beheaded and Milton published a work in defense of the regicides. He then became Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the commonwealth and published another work in vindication of the killing of King Charles. These works severely taxed his eyes, which had been weak for sottie time, and by 1654 he was completely blind. His first wife, with whom he lived most unhappily, bad died a couple ol years before, and in 1656 he married again. His second wife lived but a short time, and in 1663 he again married. The third, as the first, marriage was uphappy. Notwithstanding his domestic infelicities, his blindness and the obloquy that settled on his name after the restoration of royalty in 1660 he devoted himself to the crowning work of his

ST. GILES' CHURCH, CRIPPLEGATE. [Where Milton is buried.]

life, “Paradise Lost. ” This was followed by “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes.”- In 1674 he died and his remains were interred with those of his father in the Church of St Giles, Cripplegate. The custom of throwing shoes after a bride comes from the Jewish custom of handing a shoe to the pur* chaser after the completion of a contract (Ruth iv. 7). Parents also gave a shoe to the husband on a daughter’s marriage to signify the yielding of their authority. It is seldom that wood which has grown more than 4,000 years before the Christian era is used in the construction of a present-day residence and yet this really happened recently in Edinburgh, where a mantelpiece was fashioned from wood said to be 6,000 years old. \ inegab will not split rocks, so Hannibal could not thus have made his way through the Alps. Nor will It dissolve pearls, so that the story of Cleopatra drinking pearls melted la vinegar must have been a Action.

comparatively few who have earned gl&ry that shall never die. Shakespeare is by general accord 5 one of these; so, is John Milton. We cannot eonceive of the sweet bard of

The Henry Taylor planing mill at Lafayette, together with several residences, were destroyed by fire. Loss, $38,000. The tile mill at Curtis McCoy, leased and operated by James Murphy, five miles west of Wabash, was destroyed by fire. Mrs. Ritchie, aged about 70, while crossing the Big Four tracks at Adams, Shelby County, was struck by the local freight and instantly killed. Mr. P. E. Polk of Tyler, Texas, desires to open correspondence with some one who served in Company I, Oneh undred-and-forty-fourth Indiana Volunteers. Richard Smith was probably fatally injured at Liberty while throwing a band on a threshing machine. He was caught by the band and knocked some distance, resulting in concussion of the brain.

In the Mississinewa River at Red Bridge, Clark Lamm, aged 17, was drowned while bathing. The lad had swum the stream, and was returning, when seized with cramps, he sank to the bottom. A passing freight engine is thought to have set fire to Ed Bain’s stubble field, near Martinsville, and about 1,000 bushels of wheat was burned in three large ricks. W. G. Bain, formerly Morgan County Auditor, came near losing his life in attempting to save the wheat. George Dodson, a farmer of Brown County, subject to epilepsy, was “righting up” a burning log heap on his farm, when he fell in a fit into the fire. A small boy ran to his aid, but was unable to drag him from his dangerous position. The little fellow then ran for help, but Dodson was found to be critically burned before ho could be rescued. The fast mail on the P., C., C. & St. L. railway, struck the rear of Jacob Young’s buggy, at the crossing east of Cambridge City. He was thrown from the vehicle and dragged several hundred feet, escaping with one rib broken and being otherwise badly bruised. Mr. Young is 69 years old, a resident of East Germantown, and the injuries may result fatally. While fighting a fire in her husband’s wheat field, Mrs. Joseph Wherry, living two miles west of Marion, was the victim of a painful accident and but little hopes are entertained of her recovery. Her clothing caught fire, and she was severely burned from head to ankles. Her sufferings were intense. Mrs. Wh’erry is 26 years of age, and is the mother of one child.

An advance copy of last week’s report of the Indiana weather service, compiled in co-operation with the agricultural experiment station at Purdue University says: The temperture and sunshine during the past week were excessive, and although local rains prevailed over the State, temporarily benefiting the growing corn and potatoes, crops were reported at the end of the week as suffering from drouth, except in portions of Southern Indiana. The dry weather has affected the crops most severely in the northern portion of the State, and reports from some of the northern counties indicate that the oats crop will be almost an entire failure. Wheat threshing is about completed, and plowing for fall wheat has commenced in some sections of the State. Late reports say that the quality of the grain is very good, but the yield is not so large as was expected. Without exception pastures are reported as very short and dry, and in some instances farmers have been compelled to feed their stock as in winter. Late potatoes, already suffering from drouth, have been injured by bugs in all sections of the State. Reports again indicate that the melon crop will be unusually large and fine. Pears are in better condition than other fruits, and grapes have apparently suffered but little injury from the dry weather. Wheat took a tumble at Greensburgh recently. The fall was caused by the west end ofthe brick flowering mill of Gebs & Habeg giving way and 15,000 bushels were dumped into Lincoln street. The building was two stories high, and the west end was used for storing grain. Under this part of the building the office was located. A few moments before the wall collapsed several persons were in the office making settlements. Persons going along the street heard the creaking of the building and gave the alarm, and those in the office saved their lives by a hasty exit. John Thrailkill, son of Milton Thrailkill, a wealthy farmer of Spencer County, was thrown from a freight train at Morgansfield, Kyv; and instantly kifled. It is but a short time ago that John Thrailkill’s aunt and her son, Frank Thrailkill, both committed suicide. Rodney Ellis, a well-to-do farmer, residing near Windfall, shot himself, the ball striking the eye and ’ lodging in the brain. Ellis was a married man and was well known and respected. The physicians could not locate the ball and entertain but little hope of his recovery, although he may do so. The cause of the act is unknown, and many conflicting stories are in circulation.

AROUND A BIG STATE.

BRIEF COMPILATION OF INDIANA NEWS. What Our Neighbor* Are Doing—Matters of General and Local Interest—Marriage* and Deaths—Accidents and Crimes—Personal Pointer* Abont Indianians. Brief State Item*. 2Y tramp was seriously injured by a train at Mitchell. W. R. Golden of Gas City, has a cane consisting of 487 pieces. Several head of cattle were killed by lightning in Wayne County. A LARGE vein of fine blue limestone has been struck at Heltonville. Martinsville Odd Fellows are to have a new hall, costing $9,600. Charles Haney, 30, drunk, was killed by a train near Evansville. Fire destroyed the Golden Rule dry goods house at Bedford. Loss, $2,000. Henry McCullough 84, a prosperous farmer of Bartholomew County, is dead. Miss Emma Linsey, 10, Jeffersonville, was suddenly stricken blind and dumb. John Jefferies, a stock dealer near Carmel, had $550 stolen from his house by thieves. Sylvester Bierck. a boy, was killed in a fall from a stable loft at Madison. Patrick Carroll was horribly burned by a gas explosion in a foundry at Fort Wayne. Hugh Leach, aged 22 years, died of consumption at the home of his father, Frank Leach, in Martinsville. Alden Cox’S house, near Hortonsville, was burned while the family was at the World’s Fair. Loss, $1,500. The Moore family, which numbers nearly 162, will hold its fifth annual reunion near Farmland Saturday, Aug.