Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1900 — WESTERN. [ARTICLE]

WESTERN.

Fire that started in the old City Hotel at Everest, Kan., wiped out the main portion of the town, destroying fourteen store buildings. Duluth, Minn., has seven- incendiary fires within twenty-four hours and the authorities think an organized gang of incendiaries is at work. J. 11. Patten was killed instantly at "Joplin, Mo., by unknown negro highwaymen, and I. N. Glade, Patten’s brother-in-law, was wounded slightly. Near McLoud, Ok., Mrs. Nancy Demman and children went to a cyclone cave during a storm, but the cave had filled with water and her 2-year-old child was drowned. At Verndale. Minn., fire destroyed the following buildings: G. W. Gaslin & Co., sMloon; Smith Bros., warehouse; Dickenson Bros., general merchandise. The loss will be $30,000. f Mrs. W. J. Wilson of Tiffin, Ohio, smoked cigarettes in bed during her husband’s absence. The bed clothing caught fire and burned her face and eyes and she may lose her sight. At Tecumseh, Okla., twelve buildings burned, two hardware, two general merchandise and one millinery store, and the rest offices and residences. Loss is $30,300, with $4,500 insurance. Three persons were killed and two were seriously injured during a severe wind and rain storm at St. Paul, Minn. Many buildings in various parts of the city suffered by wind and lightning. At Piqua, Ohio, J. F. Cowan pleaded guilty to destroying monuments in the McKinney cemetery to the value of nearly SI,OOO and was fined SSOO. It means nearly three years’ imprisonment. A wreck occurred on the narrow-gauge road between Lordsburg and Clifton, N. M., in which Engineer Schlottman and Fireman MxAfee were killed. Four tramps are also reported among the dead. Maj. Charles Whipple of the pay department at New York City has been ordered to Chicago for duty as chief paymaster of the department of the lakes, to relieve Maj. William F, Tucker, paymaster. T. E. Stockdale, a traveling man, with headquarters in Chicago, committed suicide in the Union Hotel at Burlington, lowa, by turning on the gas. Papers found in his pockets showed he was in financial difficulty. Fire which started in an annex of the Chicago Cottage Organ Company’s factory, Twenty-second street and Dale place, Chicago, was soon extinguished. The total loss, principally on unfinished lumber, was less than $3,000. Kansas oat and wheat fields are alive with chinch bugs. Many fields of oats have been ruined by those pests. They have also attacked the wheat fields, but the growth of the plant is so advanced that no damage has resulted. The powder mill belonging to the Indiana Powder Company, located in a ravine near Fontanet, blew up with terrific force. The force of men bad quit work at the plant a short time before the explosion occurred. The property losa will bo heavy. Bishop Thomas O’Gorman, Just returned from Rosebud Indian agency, South Dakota, bring* the newa that he ha* baptised into the Catholic faith the fierce old Sioux Chief, Two Strikes. He is 81 years old and in his day scalped many a white man. While responding to on egrty morning blaze engine No. 15 of' St. Louis ran against an Iron post *upi»orting the guard gates at the railway crossing, Broadway and Poplar street, nnd was overturned. Driver Siebert was h ogled from bis seat and killed. - The Mellower Hotel, one of the largest and moat popular summer hotels on Delavan Lake, Wis., burned. Nothing was saved. The loss is estimated at

$15,000. The property belonged to H. W. Week. The fire is supposed to have been incendiary. , At Pine Bluff, Ark., J. S. Estes shot and probably fatally wounded Dr. J. O. Cook. Samuel Files, a bystander, received a wound' in the leg from Estes’ revolver. Estes fired six shots, three of them taking effect in Cook’s body. The shooting is the reqpit of a quarrel of long standing. At a conference held between the officials' and employes of the Suburban Railroad Company, the only system in St. Louis not controlled by the St. Louis Transit Company, an amicable adjustment was effected arid the men have returned to work. The union received full recognition. At Austin, Texas, fire broke out in a furniture factory in the center of a block of business houses on Congress avenue, the main part of the city. Owing to the disabled water power the department had to use the old system of cisterns, but in nu hour the fire was under control. Loss Is about SIO,OOO. The British ship Argus, in ballast, from Porf Angeles to Portland, Ore., collided with and sank the Hawaiian ship lolani, sugar laden, bound from Hilo to San Francisco, in a dense fog off San Francisco. The crew, numbering fifteen, and four passengers on the lolani were rescued by the Argus. Bryan and Towne were nominated by regular Populist national convention at Sioux Falls, S. D., the plan to leave second place vacant pending action by Democrats being rejected. Middle-of-the-road Populists at Cincinnati nominated Wharton Barker for President and Ignatius Donnelly for Vice-President. Fire started in the big lumber and cedar yards of the C. H. Worcester Company at Fisher, Mich., at noon the other day, and at night the town was in ruins. The loss will be over $200,000, partially insured. The C. 11. Worcester Company of Chicago, which owned almost everything in the place, is the heaviest loser. Seventy chairmakers from all parts of the United States organized the National Chair Association at Detroit. The officers elected were: President v G. W. Cann, New York: vice-president, Thomas McNeill, Sheboygan, Wis.; treasurer, Nels Johnston, Chicago; secretary, Albert Raabe, Chicago; assistant secretary, W. E. Murphy, New York. Mrs. Catherine Schwartz, living alone a few miles from Indianapolis, was robbed of s2,soo'in money and securities at midnight the other night. Two hours later policemen met R. F. Poenitz and Marion Caudell, coremakers at the Atlantic Engine works, acting suspiciously. After the arrest the money was found on them and they confessed. A desperate effort was made to burn the business portion of Duluth, Minn. Some unknown person started five fires in less than two hours, burning one man and five horses to death, and endangering over $300,000 worth of property. In a livery stable John Larson, a saloon attache, was burned to death, and five horses owned by the Hamm Brewing Company were burned. Miss Sarah Kapenburger, of Plymouth, Ohio, a guest at the Forest City Hotel, in Cleveland, jumped from the window of her room on the fourth floor of the hotel in an attempt to kill herself. She struck the sidewalk with terrific force and was badly injured. Miss Kapenburger, it is said, has recently been suffering from a deranged mind, caused by grief over the death of her mother. Grocers and merchants all over Ohio will be interested in a suit brought by wholesale grocers of Dayton, E. C. Harley & Co., through their agents, Rufus E. Waldron, Ira Jackson and Louis F. Wade, against the city of Bellevue for false arrest. The latter have been selling groceries from house to house in Bellevue without procuring a license and were fined quite heavily. They claim that the ordinance is illegal and void and the law creating the same is unconstitutional.