Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1912 — GENERAL NEWS. [ARTICLE]

GENERAL NEWS.

WASHINGTON—Two of the greatest in waterway construction have marked the year of 1911 abanner one for the United States engineers. Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, considered one of the greatest strategic points in the world by army and navy j officials, was * opened recently when , the channel upon which dredging began ten years ago, was completed. The battleship California, with Rear Admiral C. Thomas in command, was the first ship to enter the harbor. The opening was celebrated by the residents and natives of Honolulu, including a banquet of officials, at which exQueen Liliuokalani was present. Construction of the Laguna dam over the quicksands of Colorado river in Arizona is the second feat. The dam and its headgates, weigh 600,000 tons. A canal is to be constructed from the dam and, according to the plans, will pass under the Colorado river near I Yuma in a siphon 1,000 feet long and, fifteen feet it diameter.

WASHINGTON—The U. S. navy .department may appeal to congress to modify the liability act of 1908 on the ground that the navy yard workmen persist in disregarding the measures taken by the authorities for their protection against injury. It is said that although 200 pairs of protective goggles were provided at the Mare Island navy yard to save the eyes of the workers in the furnace shops, inspectors lately could not find a pair in use. Nearly 10,000 navey yard employed were treated last year by the naval surgeons for various injuries and there is some complaint that the generosity of the government has been abused. It is suggested that the existing act be amended so as to make sure that the employes are physically fit before going to work and to provide that they shall receive only 60 per cent, instead of full pay, during disability.

, WASHINGJ .I—Some radical reductions in duties are looked for in the Democratic steel tariff schedule, which the house ways and means committee probably will have ready for submission about the middle of this month. It is stated that in many instances the Payne law rates will be cut in half and that the highest rates of duty allowed on any product of steel or iron will not be more than 35 per cent ad valoiem. The greatest fight probably will be over the duty on tin plate, which, it is understood, is to be cut from $1.20 to 75 cents a hundred pm ds. Iron ore is expected to go on the iree list along with all manufactures of steel and Iron that wer made duty free in the farmers’ free list of the extra session. I ; ■’ ■ ■ RAWLINS, WYO.—An entire family consisting of the two parents and four children, was caught in a blizzard several miles from here and remained on the open prairie a night and a day before they were rescued. The father’s feet were frozen rind the mother and the children were nearly dead. When the family became lost and one of its horses had given out. the oldest sori started on horseback to try to find a ranch house. He reached here, after wandering about in the blinding snow, almost frozen. A four , horse team was sent to the family s relief. ' NEW YORK —During the year of 1911 the New York police were called to the aid of families from which some member had disappeared exactly 3,500 times. During this same time approximately 1,000 women, most of them young girls ranging In age from fourteen to twenty years, have utterly disappeared. Nor does this number cover all the young women who drop out |of the world of their acquaintances suddenly. The police say that not more than half the actual disappearances are formally reported.

WASHINGTON—The continued decrease in the number of men teachers , In the public schools of the country is deplored by Dr. Fletcher B. Dressier i of the United States bureau of tion in a report on the work of the last decade along educational lines. “There is no doubt,” he says, “that it is unwise to intrust so important a matter as the teaching of boys and girls so largely to women, but the facts are known and have been for many years, and yet the noped-for change does not come.”

NESS CITY, KAN.—-The mournful howling O|f a dog led to the discovery near this City of the body of E. Taylor, a farmer, who had fallen from his wagon on the way to market and was frozen to death by the roadside. A searching party come upon Taylor’s dog shivering beside the snowcovered body of his master. Taylor leaves a widow and five small children. At least four persons are known to have frozen to death in this section of western Kansas since the snow and cold wave came.

WINNIPEG, MAN.—A fierce fire destroyed the Excelsior Motor works garage, twenty-five automobiles, a ten house terrace and several small stores and other buildings located in the southern part of the city, entailing a loss estimated at $200,000.

HAMMOND, IND.—Three city firemen were injured and the lives of 160 school children imperiled in East Chicago, when the parochial school and Romdn Catholic church were wiped out in a fire of unknown origin.