Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1900 — IN GENERAL [ARTICLE]

IN GENERAL

Gen. Brooke will succeed Gen. Merritt in the command of the department of the East. Four troops of the Fifth United States Cavalry at San Juan, Porto Rico, are under orders to return home. Native recruits will fill their places. A new export from San Francisco to the Hawaiian Islands is rice, which has lately been sent in large quantities to Honolulu, Hilo and other outside ports. The rice is raised in Louisiana. Wreckage picked up off the Nora Scotian coast indicates almost to a certainty that the cattle ship Planet Mercury of the Elder-Dempster line has been lost with all hands. In addition to her crew she carried six cattle men. The recent earthquakes which were feltrthroughout southern Mexico did much greater damage than was indicated by the earlier reports. A number of small coast villages were destroyed and there was some loss of life. Gen. Otis has reported to the War Department that Second Lieut. John R. Waugh, Thirty-ninth volunteer infantry, shot himself through the heart while temporarily deranged from extreme nervousness, at Manila. He was a Nebraska man. The steamer Westovcr, from Jacksonville for Philadelphia, was seriously damaged by collision with one of the atone ice piers in the Delaware river at Marcus Hook. The weather was very thick at the time. The collision bulkhead saved her from sinking. The Montreal express on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, jumped the track between Ponty Pool and Burkton, Ont., and bounded down a steep embankment, the coache* toppling over each other as they neared the bottom of the incline. Twentytwo persons were slightly injured. The steamer Aorangi from Sydney brings an account of the most disastrous bush fires in Victoria experienced in the last fifty years. The entire Warrnambool district has been devastated, and the damage is estimated at $2,000,000. Seven persons perished in the flames. The steamer Amur brought a number of members from the Northwest mounted police, who are at Victoria, B. C., to seek enlistment in the Stratheona Horse. Capt. Jarvis brings news of a rich new gold strike in the Porcupine district, on Boulder creek. Fifty cents to the pan was being taken out. The creek has been staked its whole length on both sides. The Postoflice Department is about to attempt the establishment of an entirely new and shorter mail route which is planned for Alaska and which will employ dog sledges going overland from Katmai, about (500 miles from Sitka, to Cape Nome by way of Xushagak, through practically unexplored territory. The distance will be shortened by this course 1,200 or 1,300 miles. Prof. Marshall Saville, representing the American Museum of Natural History of New York, has left the City of Mexico for home, carrying many unique objects discovered by him at ruins near the pfe’historic city of Mitla,- in the State of Oaxaca. The principal work of the professor was the uncovering of many ancient mounds, which were almost inaccessible, as they were overgrown with forests. Bradstreet’s says: “Stormy weather has retarded the development of spring trade at many markets, interrupting telegraph and railway communication and naturally checking the movement of merchandise. In prices aggressive strength is still the feature of the cotton and cotton goods market, while metals remain steady. Food products, however, have weakened, and some raw materials, like wool and hides, are quotably lower. Wheat (including flour) shipments for the week aggregate 3,803,337 bushels, against 3,(500,850, bushels last week. Coro exports for the week aggregate 4,533,730 bushels, against 2.890,175 last week.”