Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1900 — INDIANA INCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA INCIDENTS.

RECORD OF EVENTS OF THE PAST WEEK. Trouble in a County Institution at Terre Haute—Mammoth Woman to Marry—Reunion of Benbow Family at Muncie—TrageJy in a Cemetery. In Terre Haute the twenty orphan children the county was boarding with a Mrs. McKenzie have been taken from her and placed iu homes. Charges are now made of extreme cruelty of the children by Matron McKenzie. One of the charges is that Mrs. McKenzie lowered a child .into a well as punishment; another that she made the children sleep on the floor to save washing the bed 'clothing. Mrs. McKenzie says that she threatened to lower children into the well as a means of preventing lhem playing around the opening of the well. She also says the children slept on comforts on the floor, but they did this of their own wish in the warm weather. Frlde-to-Be Weighs 350. Miss Lucy Havens, an inmate of the county asylum at LaPorte, owes her success in winning a husband to her great weight. . Miss Havens tips the scales at 350 pounds and is steadily growing heavier. Dr. O. J. Detter of Union City wishes to place her on exhibition as the heaviest Woman in the State, if not in the world, and he has placed a proposition of marriage in the hands of the county board. He offers to execute a bond that the woman shall not again become a county charge. Benbow Family in Rennion. There were 156 of the 212 members of tile Benhow family present at the annual reunion in Muncie, representing all parts of the United States. A feature was a report fretn Hie committee laoki-ng up a $1,000,000 estate supposed to be due the descendants in Wales. I’he following officers were elected: President, Frank Benbow, Muncie: vice-president. Mrs. John Stober, Vining, Kan.; recording secretary, Minnie Benltow, Muncie; treasurer, H. Benbow, Muncie. Suicide on Wife’s Grave. Versailles William von Ijoenitz, an aged widower, went to Cliff Hill cemetery at Osgood, knelt down by his wife’s grave, swallowed poison and then blew his head off with a pistol. He had been fined for assaulting Seth Johnson. State News in Brief. Utica has a ghost sensation. Human skeleton found iu a Muncie gravel pit. Plainfield is now talking with the wide, wide world by 'phone. Eleven sheep on one farm sear Laporte were killed by lightning. Oliver Thornburg, farmer near Dublin, lias purchased au automobile. James Christy, Shelbyville, narrowly escaped being gored to death by a bull. In the vicinity of Plymouth $6,000 worth qf pickles were raised this season. John and Sarah Reep, Vincennes, celebrated their fifty-seventh wedding anniversary. Cornelius Dilley died at his home near Sullivan. He taught school for fortyfive years. C. E. Green, Crawfordsville, found a pearl, which he thinks is worth S2OO, in Sugar creek. Mrs. Mary Rank, Allen County, 109, born in England, remembers the battle of Waterloo. < The corner stone for a Christian church was laid at Strop, the new cement town, in La Grange County. Prof. A. B. Porter and wife went from Chicago to Richmond by automobile in three days and a half. Frank Ambrose, an Evansville bookkeeper, walked from a second-story window i.) his sleep, receiving fatal injuries. Mrs. Samuel Thomas, living near Daleville, found Charles Smith, colored, at her hen roost and filled him full of shot. A slate thrown into a tree to dislodge u hat, utruck the 3-year-old child of William Terry, near Kokomo, almost severing its head. Thi'eves entered the house of George Grahs, Union City. They broke a window with an ax, in full view, and ratcured SSO. After ten years’ effort Central Union Telephone Company gets exchange in Laporte by buying out the local company and toll lines to several towns. Dr. J. W. Clokey, pastor of the Fiist Presbyterian Church. New Albany, one of the most fashionable churches in the city, welcomes male shirt waists in church. Messrs. Rogers and Kaupke hare struck a flowing oil well near San Pierre. The oil was found at a depth of 135 feet 6 inches in oil rock, and the flow’ is strong and steady. Edward Huffman, the 5 year-old son of William Huffman of Brazil, fell over the dashboard while riding with bis mother and was trampled to death before he could be rescued. When Miss Carrie Pears of Mentone was about to retire she discovered a large snake coiled in the middle of her bed. Before she could summon assistance it escaped through an open window. Miss Etta Horner, 14 years old, of Radnor, is dead, the result of eating a pint of prepared mustard. The girl had a craving appetite for the preparation and ate it over the protest of her parents. John Locke, in jail at Anderson on the charge of infanticide, asked a prisoner, who was released, to buy ten cents’ worth of morphine for him to relieve pains. It is thought he meant to kill himself. The man liecame suspicious and did not b-.iy the drug. ; Sam Sanders, arrested in Christian County, Illinois, Confessed he is from Indiana and is a member of an organized gang of thieves that has stolen fifty horses in the last few months, marketing them in Terre Haute. He confessed nho that members of the gang are responsible for fires. Thomas O’Fazzio, Logansport Italian}, went to an island in the Wnbash rivet 4 , with another man, who forced him to land and then went back to shore and took the Itnlian’n coat and $5. o’Fhmlo spent the tliy on the island, shouting for assistance