Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1894 — WHOLE CITY WAS IN DANGER. [ARTICLE]

WHOLE CITY WAS IN DANGER.

Shelbyville, Ind., Has a Narrow Escape from Burning Down. At Shelbyville, Ind., by mistake the natural gas was given high pressure in the low pressure mains, and at midnight it was discovered that over 500 stoves and heaters in all parts of the city were melting under the intense heat, and buildings were igniting in every direction. The fire alarm was turned in, bells were rung, whistles sounded and the citizens were aroused from their slumbers to discover themselves in the midst of a general conflagration. The flow of gas was arrested and only three houses were burned. The destruction of thSse buildings amounted to considerable loss to the owners. If the alarm had been twenty minutes later nothing could have saved the city from destruction. The Mean Thing. “Women play smart tricks on one another sometimes," said a smart American woman; “but the queerest I ever heard of was perpetrated by one social leader in a Western city upon another. They were rivals, and hated each other accordingly, though outwardly they preserved the semblance of pleasant relations. Every chance that either got to give a dig at the other was eagerly seized. But the final and most effective ‘stroke, after which no calls were exchanged, was delivered by Mrs. L'. She sent out caids for a grand entertainment, and then took pains to find out what Mrs. her competitor, was going to wear. A gorgeous brocaded tatin was the materia of Mrs. F.’s gown, it was ascertained. Accordingly Mrs. L., whose husband was in the dry goods business, obtained several hundred yards of the same identical stuff and draped the walls of all the rooms on the lower floor of her house with it. You may imagine th« feelings of Mrs. F.. on arriving in her superb new frock, which she expected to make a sensation. Naturally, she ordered her carriage and drove away in tears.” This Is Utopia. Off the northeast coast of New Guinea the Island of Kitaba, surrounded by a wall of coral .00 feet high on the outside and from fifty to 100 on the inside, maintains twelve villages of natives, to whom war, crime and poverly have been unknown since the beginning of their traditions.