Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — WESTERN. [ARTICLE]

WESTERN.

The schooner Winslow sank in a heavy gale near White Shoals in the straits of Mackinaw. The custom-house receipts for the port of San Francisco for the month of August amounted to $567,273.49, the largest receipts for a single month in the records of the department. At Topeka, the Kansas Loan and Trust Company, lately known as the Trust Company of America, has failed. The liabilities are estimated at $400,000; assets at $1,200,000. Fire broke out it) the p.?in( and oil room of Fenton's drug store, in the best built part of Rocky Ford, Colo. The entire block was consumed before the tiames were controlled. The loss will exceed $50,000. At St. Louis, the five-story brick building of the A. Geisel Manufacturing Company took fire, and within twenty minutes was totally destroyed. The loss is estimated at SIOO,OOO. It is supposed the fire started from an electric wire. During a storm lightning struck one of tire mammoth iron oil tanks of the Buckeye Pipe Line Company, west of Findlay, Ohio, containing 35,000 barrels of crude oil. The tank exploded and set fire to a second bne. The loss will be $60,000. A scaffolding in the tower of the union station at Kansas City, Mo., fell a distance of thirty feet, carrying down with it five workmen and burying them beneath a shower of bricks, broken timber and plaster. It is thought none will die. Fireman Fred P. Smith was killed and Engineer George Hartford seriously injured in a wreck on the California and Oregon Railroad,, near Simms station, Cal. The engine and eight cars jumped the track and rolled down an embankment. Private Alex La Duke, Company 1, Second Wisconsin volunteers, was placed in the Federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan., to remain for life, for the murder of Private Thomas Stafford of the Thirteenth United States infantry in u saloon row in Ponce, Porto Rico. Fourteen business buildings at Rapid River, Mich., were destroyed by fire, causing great losses. In John Caswell’s barn twenty-two horses were cremated. The village has nearly 2.000 population and is entirely -Without fire protection. The belief is general that the fife was of incendiary origin. An attempt to assassinate Mrs. Needham, the wife of Danny Needham, the pugilist, was made at Oakland, Cal. Mrs. Needham wgs standing by a table in her dining room, when three shots were fired at her through a window. Danny Needham is in Alaska. His wife says she knows who fired the'shots, but refuses to tell the man’s name. * A private telegram from George Q. Caunon, who is now in Ban Francisco,

announces the death of the President of the Mormon Church, Wiiford Woodruff. He had been troubled with kidney complaint for some time and went to the Pacific coast for the Improvement of his health about a month ago. Mr. Woodruff was born at Farmington, Conn., in 1807, and was one of the original 147 pioneers that reached Salt Lake valley in 1847. The schooner Sophia Sutherland, which left San Francisco eighteen months ago tvith a party of treasure seekers for the Solomon Islands, has returned with a cargo of cocoanuts. The men were deceived by the projector of the enterprise, L. P. Sorenson, who was put ashore on the island. The others sailed for Samba, four of them dying of fever. Captain McLean has a poor opinion of the Solomon Islands, but says the outlook for trade in Samoa is good, as the people are beginning to raise cocoa. The political situation in Samoa was strained when the vessel left, as the death of King Malietoa was expected. Five men were killed by a premature explosion of dynamite near Stinesville, Ind. The men were at work on the Mount Tabor and Ellettsville turnpike and had prepared to blast rock for macadamizing. Fifteen men were working near the spot, but besides the killed only one was badly injured. All*the dead were blackened and mangled almost beyond recognition. They were all married men and all leave small children. All lived in or near Stinesville. The debris and broken stone from the explosion were carried over a mile and the earth was shaken as if by an earthquake. It is not know what caused the explosion. The most important case under the bankruptcy law yet recorded lu Nebraska, so far as the amount of liabilities is concerned, has just been filed in the office of the clerk of the United States Court. It is the petition of Ben Reynolds, a member of the firm of railroad contractors E. P. Reynolds & Co., who lives at Wymore, Neb. The liabilities are close to $2,000,000, and include notes for SIIB,OOO for borrowed money, which are now held by Porter Skinner of Boek Island, 111., and the balance made up of bills for supplies aud other unpaid accounts incident to the company's business. The assets are given as a $50,000 judgment in the United States Court against the Union Pacific Railroad Company. Mr. Beynolds seeks to be absolved from any further liability on these •debts, or interest in the assets as a member of the company.