Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1900 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

Commander Wainwright of the Gloucester was presented with a sword »t Washington. Congress has received a petition from a Quiney man for the exclusive right to bsb in the Mississippi river. Gen. Corbin issued a statement showing that contributions received- since the closing of the Lawton fund have swelled the tothl amount to $93,304. The House of Representatives, by a vote of 208 to 50, refused to allow the seating of Brigham H. Roberts, polygamist Congressman-elect from Utah. The official census of Porto Rico has been finished. Sad Juan has* 32,500 inhabitants. /Ponce has nearly twice as many residents, the number being stij,000. There are 907,000 iuhabltahta. oai the island. Jti V The national board of trade has adopted a resolution urging upon Congress the passage of legislation which would allow the laying of a competing cable line between Cuba and the United States, awd

CT r S ■ fra **3 75? I reaffirmed its action of last year in favor of a law permitting the railroads to make agreements as to rates nnder the supervision of the interstate commerce commission. The War Department has made public a report from Capt. W. R. Abercrombie, Second infantry, who commanded the Copper river exploring expedition in Alaska last season. The report gives an account of the laying out of the great transalaskan military route from Port Valdez, Alaska, to Port Egbert, ou the Yukou. Capt. Abercrombie found that hundreds of people were dying of starvation and scurvy in the Copper river country. At Valdez 70 per cent of the inmates of the huts were mentally deranged. This was common to those whom a fear of scurvy had driven over the glacier, where so many had perished by freezing to death.