Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — HUSTLING HOOSIERS. [ARTICLE]

HUSTLING HOOSIERS.

ITEMS GATHERED FROM OVER THE STATEAn Interor.tinp: Summary of the More Important Doings of Our Neighbors—Wed-* dings and Deaths—Primes, Casualties* and General Imliani hews Notes. Terrible Explosion at Elwood. At Ellwood occurred the most terrific gas explosion ever known in that city. The scene of the explosion was at the plant of the Electric Light and Streetcar Power Company. The gas had accumulated under the floor, and without a moment’s warning an explosion took place, wrecking the building and hurling the sections in all directions. One portion of the structure crashed through the street car barn, situated alongside the power house, and also partially demolished the office of« the Citizens’ Gas Company near by. The ponderous engine and dynamos were lifted from the floor and hurled across the room, every inch of floor being torn from the sleepers and hurled into the air, together with the sides and roof, which then fell among the dismantled machinery, burying four men in the ruins.. AIL escaped with thenlives. The injured are: O. B. Frazier, face and hands burned and badly Lruis .d. Lewis Shively, face and hands cut with flying debris. David Thompkins, injured about head and bedv. Joseph McMahan, several gashes in head, lace, hands and body. All were in the building at the time of the explosion except Shively, who had only moment before stopped outside. Miss Minnie Mitchell and Bert Carpenter, who were employed at the Citizens’ Gas Company’s office, had a narrow escape from the flying slate and timbers. McMahan was blown clear out of the wreck over into an alley, and when found was unconscious. Physicians pronounce the men seriously but not fatally hurt. Minor State Items. r Muncie is to have another company of State militia. Geo. Jordan, a Cambridge City blacksmith, suicided by shooting himself. Despondent because of poverty. Dick Goodman, leader of a notorious gang and who was-shot while attempting to rob a store, is dying at his home at Dundee. William Halfin, an employe of the American tin-plate factory at Anderson, had his arm badly cut and burned in an accident. At Marion, William Mendenhall was thrown from a buggy during a runaway, and injured, it is feared, beyond recovery. Mrs. Perry Laymen, who lives in the oil field eight miles north of Portland, was fatally burned while kindling a fire with coal oil. A southern Indiana paper missed publication one day lately because the editor's wife, who did the typesetting, had gone away on a visit. Herman Uphaus of Richmond, is in a dangerous condition from a drink of embalming fluid, which he took from a supposed wine cask in his cellar. Peru city officials are beginning war on the Wabash strawboard works for emptying rofuse into the river from which the city's water supply is taken.

. A sad case of destitution came to light at Muncie recently. A woman with seven children is trying to feed them all on the paltry sum of $1.25 a week and they are nearly starved. Two burglars ransacked' John Grondahi’s house, near Chesterton, and carried away a lot of jewelry and valuable notes. They were captured at Valparaiso. Henry Blessing, a farmer living north of Fort Wayne, awoke and found his residence in flames. He had just time to throw his wife and children out of a window and leap after them as the floor fell in. Loss, $2,500; no insurance. The remains of John C. Lutz, which were buried at Richmond nearly a century ago, were exhumed recently to be placed in another grave. Upon examination the body and clothes were found to be in a remarkaqle state of preservation. Representatives of the Chicago Rock Face Stone Company are in Muncie negotiating for the location of a plant in that city for the manufacture of their patent product. The proposed plant will employ about 300 people, and it is likely to be located in Muncie. Clifford Ellis, son of the Dublin postmaster, while out hunting lost an arm by the accidental discharge of his shotgun. He was squeezing through a wire fence when the gun went off, the contents passing through his arm, necessitating amputation half way between the hand and elbow. Patents have been granted to Indiana inventors as follows: Samuel M. Brundage. Indianapolis, deflector for ironing machines; Theodore Decker, Charlottesville, assigner of one-half to T. Roberts, Arlington, harness; John A. Grove, Bluffton, wire fence; George I. Harwell, Fort Wayne, folding chair; John I. Hoke,. South Bond, harrow; Henry Stacey, assigner of one-half to M. H. Cain, Indianapolis, oil burner. While their mother was absent from their home, ten miles south of Veedersburg, two little girls, the daughters of Lewis Davis, while curling their hair, accidentally overturned a lamp, the oil spreading over their clothing and igniting. They ran out into the yard, when their mother, attracted by their screams, rushed to them, but was helpless to check the flames. Their clothing was burned off and the charred flesh dropped from their bodies. Qne of them died ere they extinguished the flames and the other lived only a short time. Mrs. Davis was so badly burned that she will die.

The El wood Land Company has been changed from a mere association to an incorporated body, with a capital stock of $250,000; It controls over one thousand acres of the adjacent territory, and holds gas leases upon 100,000 acres of contiguous territory to that city. William Cole, an employe a£ the rolling mill at Brazil, met accidental death while piling scrap iron. He was standing on a sfnall car, and in attempting to remove a piece of heavy iron above his head, his feet slipped and he fell backwards, striking his head against a car wheel, knocking out his brains. The Seymour Democrat says that hunters are having unusually hard' luck. Game is scarce. Redfield Nelson, a farmer living eight miles from Petersburg, was killed by a tree falling on him. The other morning lire was discovered in the store room of the Patton Manufacturing Company at the State Prison South, and for a time it looked as if the entire building was doomed. In one end of the building is also located the offices of the company. The prompt action taken by the officials and men saved the building. The loss will not exceed S7OO. It is supposed that the fire was the work of some of the convicts.