Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1900 — IN GENERAL. [ARTICLE]

IN GENERAL.

Gov. Allen of Porto Rico i» to be installed May 1. Smallpox is rife iu Winnipeg and an epidemic of great proportions is feared. Canadians suspect a Fenian plot in the attempt to blow up tbe Welland Canal locks. Experts figure that the Government loyt $2,000,000 through the frauds of Captain Oberlin M. Carter. Allison V. Armour’s auxiliary yacht Utownna nrrired at Hartn, Island of Azores. All on board are well. The taxation of railroads on a gross earnings basis is to become a part of the conservative administration’s program in Manitoba. Many Japanese are leaving Vancouver and Victoria for tbe Klondike, in the hope of securing work for wages or to wash abandoned ground. ■ -— r~ Fire destroyed Hull, Out., leaped the river to Ottawa and burned half the latter city. Homeless persons number 15,000; property loss is $20,000,000. American salmon cauucrs, operating at Anacortes and other near-by places, have offered the dominion government to establish and maintain- a first-class hatchery on the Frazer river. Telegraphic advices from Dawson state that the census of the Klondike has been completed. The population of Dawson is ,044, and of the Klondike 3,397. The district has 2,707 British subjects and 5,539 citizens of the United States. Tbe State Department at Washington has notified Mrs. Rita L. Ruiz, widow of Dr. Ricardo Ruiz, who was murdered in prison at Guannbacoa, Cuba, while a captive of the Spaniards, that the chair on which he wrote his last message, In his own blood, would be forwarded to her. The wife of Maj. Gen. James 11. Wilson, military governor of the department of Matanzas-Santa Clara, Cuba, died from the effects of burns accidentally received while driving with her daughter. While alighting from her carriage Mrs. Wilson stepped on a match, which ignited her dress. That satisfactory terms have been agreed upon by the owners of the railway systems of Cuba was foreshadowed by the incorporation of the Cuba Company, backed by some of the most powerful capitalists in the United States and Canada. As a result the railways of Cuba will become one system. Siegel, Cooper & Co., who organized as a firm in 1887, will turn over their large department stores lu Chleago and New York July 2 to the Siegel-Cooper Company, which has incorporated in New Jersey, with provision for a co-operative enterprise, in which the employes and the public are given opportunity to participate. The capital stock is $24,000,000, $14,250,000 being li per cent cumulative preferred and $9,750,000 common stock, par value. SSO. The company will place $2,000,000 common stock in trust, the same annual dividend to be distributed among employes who have served with satisfactory results. Bradstrcct’s has this to say of the condition of business: “Evidence of the fact that there are uow two sides to the general trade situation, where for a year past there was but one, come to sight each week. Different sections of the country and lines of business return differing reports, bnt that the situation as a whole is a favorable one aud suffers merely by comparison with the enormous and almost feverish activity of some time ago is also evident. Crop prospects, except in the wheat area of the central west and in some flooded sections of the South, remain all that might be wished for. Retail demand is improving, and nothing of a definitely depressing character ha* yet developed. One of the most favorably situated industries is that of shoes. Paints, oils aud drags nre also in good distribution. In agricultural products the situation is generally one of sustained strength. Wheat (including flour) shipments for the week aggregate 3,(183,9G3 bushels, agaiust 3,989,451 bushels last week. Corn exports for the week aggregate 8,G20,0G4 l>ushek, against 158.747 bushels last week.”