People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — Page 6

THE COLOSSEUM.

Dr. Talmage Discourses on the Great Roman Amphitheater. The Terrible Slaughter Therein Enacted —The Heroism of Telemachus— Modern Brutality—The Last Judgment. In a recent sermon in the Brooklyn tabernacle, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage discoursed on Rome, taking the Colosseum as the subject matter. His text was: I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome, also.—Romans i., 15. Rome! What a city it was when Paul visited it! What a city it is now! Rome! The place where Virgil sang and Horace satirized, and Terence laughed and Cataline conspired, and Ovid dramatized and Nero fiddled, and Vespasian persecuted and Sulla legislated, and Cicero thundered, and Aurelius, and Decius, and Caligula, and Julian, and Hadrian, and Constantine, and Augustus reigned, and Paul, the apostle, preached the Gospel. I am not much of a draughtsman, but I have in my memorandum book a sketch which I made in the winter of 1889, when I went out to the gate through which Paul entered Rome, and walked up the very street he walked up to see somewhat how the city must have looked to him as he came in on the Gospel errand proposed in the text. Palaces on either side of the street through which the little missionary advanced. Piled up wickedness. Enthroned aecursedness. Templed cruelties. Altars to sham deities. Glorified delusions. Pillared, arched, domed, turreted abominations. Wickedness of all sorts at a high premium, and righteousness ninety-nine and three-quar-ters per cent. off. And now he passes by the foundations of a building which is to be almost unparalleled for vastness. You can see by the walls, which have begun to rise, that here is to be something enough stupendous to astound the centuries. Aye, it is the Colosseum started. Of the theater at Ephesus where Paul fought with wild beasts, of the temple of Diana, of the Parthenon, of Pharoah’s palace at Memphis, and of other great buildings, the ruins of which I have seen, it has been my privilege to address you, but a member of my family asked me recently why I had not spoken to you of the Colosseum at Rome, since its moral and religious lessons are so impressive. Perhaps, while in Rome, the law of contrast wrought upon me. I had visited the Mamertine dungeon where Paul was incarcerated. I had measured the opening at the top of the dungeon throngh which Paul had been let down, and it was twenty-three inches by twenty-six. The ceiling, at its highest point, was seven feet from the floor, but at the sides of the room the ceiling was five feet seven inches. The room, at the widest, was fifteen feet. There was a seat of rock two and one-half inches high. There was a shelf four feet high. The only furniture was a spider’s web suspended from the roof, which I saw by the torchlight I carried. There was the subterraneous passage from the dungeon to the Roman forum, so that the prisoner could be taken directly from prison to trial. The dungeon was built out of volcanic stone from the Albano mountains. Oh, it was a dismal and terrific place. You never saw a coal-hole so dark or so forbidding. The place was to me a nervous shock, for I remembered that was the best thing that the world would afford the most illustrious being, except One, that it ever saw, and that

from that place Paul went out to die. From that spot I visited the Colosseum, one of the most astounding miracles of architecture that the world ever saw. I saw it morning, noon and night, for it threw a spell on me from which I could not break away. Although now a vast ruin, the Colosseum is so well preserved that we can stand in the center and recall all that it once was. It is in shape ellipsoidal, oval, oblong. It is, at its greatest length, six hundred and twelve feet. After it had furnished seats for eighty-seven thousand people it had room for fifteen thousand more to stand, so that one hundred thousand people could sit and stand transfixed by its scenes of courage and martyrdom and brutality and horror. Instead of our modern tickets of admission they enter by ivory checks, and a check dug up near Rome within a few

years was marked: “Section six, Lowest Tier, Seat Number Eighteen” You understand that the building was not constructed for an audience to be addressed by human voice, although I tested it with some friends and could be heard across it, but it was made only for seeing and was circular, and at any point allowed full view of the spectacle. The arena in the center in olden times was strewn with pounded stone or sand, so as not to be too slippery with human blood, for if it were too slippery, it would spoil the fun. The sand flashed here and there with sparkles of silver and gold, and Nero added cinnabar and Caligula added chrysocolla. The sides of the arena were composed of smooth marble, eleven feet high, so that the wild beasts of the arena could not climb into the audience. On the top of these sides of smooth marble was a metal railing, having wooden rollers, which easily revolved, so that if a panther should leap high enough to scale the wall, and with his paw touch any of those rollers, it would revolve and drop him back again into the arena. Back of this marble wall surrounding the arena was a platform of stone, adorned with the statues of gods and goddesses and the artistic effigies of monarchs and conquerors. Here were movable seats for the emperor and the imperial swine and swinesses with which he surrounded himself. Before the place where the emperor sat the gladiators would walk immediately after entering the arena, crying: “Hail, Caesar! Those about to die salute thee.” The different ranks of spectators were divided by partitions studded with mosaics

! of emerald, and beryl, and ruby, and I diamond. Great masts of wood arose from all sides of the building, : from which festoons of flowers were suspended, crossing the building, or in time of rain awnings of silk were suspended, the Colosseum having no roof. I The outside wall was encrusted with marble, and had four ranges, and the three lower ranges had eighty columns each an 4 arches after arches, and on each arch an exquisite statue of a god or a hero. Into one hundred and eighty feet of altitude soared the Colosseum. It glittered and flashed and shone with whole sunrises and sunsets of dazzlement. After the audience had assembled aromatic liquids oozed from tubes distilled from pipes and rained gently on the multitudes, and filled the air with odors of hyacinth, and heliotrope, and frankipcen.se, and balsam, and myrrh, and saffron, so that Lucan, the poet, says of it: At onco ten thousand saffron currents flow, And rain their odors on the crowd below. But where was the sport to come from? Well, I went into the cellars opening off from the arena, and I saw the places where they kept the hyenas and lions and panthers and wild boars and beastly violences of all sorts, without food or water until made fierce enough for the arena, and I saw the underground rooms where the gladiators were accustomed to wait until the clapping of the people outside demanded that they come forth armed to murder or to be murdered. All the arrangements were complets, as enough of the cellars and galleries still remained to indicate. What fun they must have had turning lions without food or drink for a week upon an unarmed disciple of Jesus Christ! At the dedication of this colosseum, nine thousand wild beasts and ten thousand immortal men were slain; so that the blood of men and beast was not a brook but a river, not a pool but a lake. Having been in that way dedicated, be not surprised when I tell you tliat Emperor Probus on one occasion threw into that arena of the Colosseum one thousand stags, one thousand hoars and one thousand ostriches. What fun it must have been! the s ound of trumpets, the roar of wild beasts and the groans of dyipg men ! while in the gallery the wives and children of those down under the lion’s paw wrung their hands and shrieked out in widowhood and orphanage, while one hundred thousand people clapped their hands, and there was a “Ha! Ha!” wide as Rome and deep as perdition. The corpses of that arena were put on a cart or dragged by a hook through what was called the Gate of Death. What an excitement it must have been when two combatants entered the arena, the one with sword and shield and the other with net and spear. The swordsman strikes at the man with the net and spear; he dodges the swoi’d. and then flings the net over the head of the swordsman and jerks him to the floor of the arena, and the man who flung the net puts his foot on the neck of the fallen swordsman, and, spear in hand, looks up to the galleries, as much as to say: “Shall I let him up, or shall I plunge this spear into his body until he is dead?” The audience had two signs, either of which they might give. If they waved their flags it meant spare the fallen contestant. If they turned their thumbs down it meant slay him. Occasionally the audience would wave their flags and the fallen would be let up. but that was too tamo sport for most occasions, and generally the thumbs from the galleries were turned down, and with that sign would be heard the accompanying shout of “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Yet it was far from being a monotone of sport, for there was a change of programme in that wondrous Colosseum. Under a strange and powerful machinery, beyond anything of modern invention, the floor of the arena would begin to rock and roll and t hen give away, and there would appear a lake of bright water, and on its banks trees would spring up rustling with foliage, and tigers appeared among the jungles, and armed men would come forth, and there would be a tiger hunt. Then, on the lake in the Colosseum, armed ships would float and there would be a sea fight. What fun! What lots of fun! When pestilence came, in order to appease the gods, in this Colosseum a sacrifice would be made, and the people would throng that great amphitheater, shouting: “The Christians to the wild beasts,” and there would be a crackling of human bones in the jaws of leonine ferocity.

But all this was to be stopped. By the outraged sense of public cleceney? No. There is only one thing that has ever stopped cruelty and that is Christianity, and it was Christianity, whether you like its form or not, that stopped this massacre of centuries. One day, while in the Colosseum, a Roman victoiy was being celebrated, and one hundred thousand enraptured spectators were looking down upon two gladiators in the arena stabbing and slicing each other to death, an Asiatic monk by the name of Telemachus was so overcome by the cruelty that he leaped from the gallery into the arena and ran in between the two swordsmen, and pushed first one back and then the other hack, and broke up the contest Of course, the audience was affronted at having its sport stopped, and they hurled stones at the head of Telemachus until he fell dead in the arena. But when the day was passed and the passions of the people had cooled off, they deplored the martyrdom of the brave and Christian Telemachus, and, as a result of the overdone cruelty, the human sacrifices of the Colosseum were forever abolished. What a good thing, say yo u, that such cruelties have ceased. friends, the same spirit of ruinous sfinusements and of moral sacrifice is abroad in the world to-day, although it takes other shapes. Last summer in our country there occurred a scene of pugilism on which all Christendom looked down, for I saw the papers on the other side of the Atlantic ocean giving whole columns of it. Will some one tell me in what respect that brutality of last summer was superior to the brutality

cf the Roman colosseum? In some re- I apects it was worse, by so much as the ! nineteenth century pretends to be i more merciful and more decent than i the fifth century. That pugilism is ! winning admiration in this country j is positively proved by the fact that years ago such collision was | reported in a half dozen lines ! of newspaper, if reported at all, | and now it takes the whole side of a newspaper to tell what transpired be- | tween the first blood drawn by one loaf- ! er and the throwing up of the sponge by ; the other loafer, and it is not the news- ! paper’s fault, for the newspapers give only what the people want, and when j newspapers put carrion on their table j i* is because you prefer carrion. The same spirit of brutality is seen to-day I in many an ecclesiastical court when a minister is put on triaL Look at the countenances of the prosecuting minis- j ters, and, not in all cases, but in many | cases, you will find nothing but diabolism inspires them. They let out on j one poor minister who can not defend j l imself, the lion of ecclesiasticism and the tiger of bigotry and the wild boar cf jealousy, and if they can get the c'ffending minister flat on his back some one ptjt his feet on the neck of the overthrown gospelizer and looks up, ! spear in hand, to see whether the galleries and ecclesiastics would have him let up or slain. And, lo! many of the thumbs are down.

In the worldly realms look at the j brutalities of the presidential election j eight years ago. Read the biographies of Daniel Webster and Alexander H. Stevens and Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner and Lucius Quintius Lamar and James G. Blaine, and if the story j of defamation and calumny and scan- | dalization and diatribe and scurrility and lampoon and billingsgate aad damnable perfidy be accurately recorded, tell me in what respects our political arena and the howling and blaspheming galleries that again and again look down upon it are better | than the Roman Colosseum. When I read a few days ago that the supreme ; court of the United States had appro- ( priately adjourned to pay honors to the two last distinguished men men- j tioned, and American journalism, ! north, south, east and west, went ! into lamentations over their dc- | parture and said all complimentary j things in regard to them, I asked, ! when did the nation lie about these i men? Was it when, during their life, 1 it gave them malediction, or now, j since their death,' when bestowing j upon them beatification. The same i spirit of cruelty that you deplore in the Roman Colosseum is seen in the sharp appetite the world seems to have for the downfall of good men, and in the divorce of those whose marital life j was thought accordant, and in the absconding of a bank cashier. Oh, my j friends, the world wants more of the j spirit of “Let-him up,” and less of the! spirit of “Thumbs down.” There are hundreds of men in the prisons of America who ought to be discharged, because they were the victims of circumstances or have suffered enough. There are in all profession sand occupations men who are domineered over by j others and whose whole life is a struggle with monstrous opposition, and circumstances have their heel upon the throbbing and broken hearts. For God’s sake, let them up! Away with the spirit of “Thumbs down!” What the world wants is a thousand men like Telemachus to leap out of the gallery into the arena, whether he he a Roman Catholic monk or a Methodist steward, or a Presbyterian elder, and go in between the contestants. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” One-half the world is down and the other half is up, and the half that is up has its heel on the half that is down. If you, as a boss workman, or as a contractor, or as a bishop, or as a state or national official, or as a potent factor in social life, or in any way, are oppressing anyone, know that the same devil that possessed the Roman Colosseum oppresses you. The Diocletians are not all dead. The cellars leading into the arena of life’s struggle are not all emptied of their tigers. The vivisection by young doctors of dogs and cats and birds most of the time adds nothing to human discovery, but is only a continuation of Vespasian’s Colosseum. The cruelties of the world generally begin in nurseries and in home circles, and in day schools. The child that tranfixes a fly with a pin, or the low »feeling that sets two dogs into combat, or that bullies a

weak or crippled playmate, or the in- j difference that serves a canary bird, i needs only to be developed in order to | make a first-class Nero or a full armed Apollyon. It l would be a good sentence to lie written on the top line of a child’s book, and a fit inscription to be embroidered in the arm-chair of the sitting room, and an appropriate motto for judge and jury and distriot attorney and sheriff to look at in the court room: “Blessed arc the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.” And so the ruins of that Collosseum preach to me. Indeed, the most impressive things on earth are ruins. The four greatest structures ever built are ruius. The Parthenon in ruins. The temple of Diana in ruins. The temple of Jerusalem in ruins. The Collosseum in ruins. Indeed, the earth itself will yet be a pile of ruins; the mountains in ruins, the seas in ruins, the cities in ruins, the hemispheres in ruins. Yea, further than that, all up and down the heavens are worlds burned up, worlds wrecked, worlds extinct, worlds abandoned. Worlds on worlds in ruins! But 1 ain glad to say it is the same old Heaven, and in all’that world there is not one ruin, and never will be a ruin. Not one of the pearly gates will ever become unhinged. Not one of the amethystine towers will ever fall. Not one of the mansions will ever decay. Not one of the chariots will ever be unwheeled. Not one of the thrones will ever- rock down. Oh! make sure of Heaven, for it is an everlasting Heaven. Through Christ, the Lord, get ready for residence in the eternal palaces. The ruins of an Aztec city have been discovered within 25 miles of Phoenix, Aria.

ART AT THE FAIR.

Preparations for a Grand Display of Famous Picturea Lady Butler'* Masterpiece, "The Last Roll Call," Loaned by Queen Victoria from Her Private CoUection—The Largest Art Gallery In the World. (Special Chicago Correspondence.! To many even of the most enthusiastic promoters of the world’s fair it is a constant source of surprise to see how the enterprise is growing far beyond the original plans. The recognition accorded to it by persons of weight abroad is especially gratifying to them. This applies more, perhaps, than anywhere else, to the department of fine arts. It was admitted quite generally in the early stages of the undertaking that while in the industrial and commercial lines the World’s Columbian exposition would probably surpass all that had gone before, it would, of necessity, lag hehind others, and particularly behind the great Paris exposition of ISB9, in the fine arts exhibit. The argument was that the United States is a young country which is occupied with building up its material prosperity and has not yet had time to devote much of its energies to those things which go to embellish life and make it enjoyable in the higher sense. That it would reach this stage later on and was, in fact, entering on it even in our day was, of course, understood. But, for the time being, there was no dispute that the stage had not been reached when it could compete with the old world in the matter of an art exhibit, and that our exposition would suffer by comparison with the one of 1889 which was held in the capital of that country which stands to-day, without question, at the head as the world of art. It is all the more gratifying, in view of these circumstances, to see that the fine arts exhibit promises to be among the best of the entire exposition. In the first place, there has been built the

largest art gallery in the world. It was built substantially, the artists who contemplated exhibiting insisting upon having a building where the works of their lives might be reasonably safe from fire. i The art building lies in the northern part of the world’s fair grounds, within ; that part which was the improved portion before the exposition company ' took charge of the grounds. It graces : the north bank of a pretty lake which Is surrounded by the buildings of the various states of the union and foreign governments. | It is a building of severe simplicity, ! almost plainness, in pure classical ! style, as far as this was compatible with the practical purposes which the j building had to serve. The interior is ! arranged with a view of having as much wall space as possible for hangI ing pictures and as much floor space as 1 can be had for statuary. The applications for space have been extraordinary. It goes without saying j that all applications could not be acted ! upon favorably. There must be disj cretiou used in admitting exhibits in j this department more than anywhere | else. A jury is now at work making I the selections for the exhibit. A great i many artists will naturally be disap- ; pointed, but this is inevitable. Great * secrecy is observed with regard to the ! applications. The names of the appli- | cants for space are not given to the ! public, as it is considered that it would | be an injustice to those whose work ! might not be admitted. The names of | the successful ones only will be made ! public.

Among the pictures that will come here from abroad are many of renown in the artistic world. Wealthy connoisseurs and ruling monarchs have been prevailed upon to allow the treasures of their private galleries and public museums to be brought here for exhibition. Works of art that have not been moved from their present places for many years, almost centuries, will he shipped to this city and exhibited to the visitors at the fair. In this way the collection bids fair to rival even the magnificent exhibit at Paris in 1889. The fortunate position of the United States in being at peace with the whole world, having no enemies to fear and no diplomatic complications with any iiation, proves of great benefit in this connection. There has been quite a little talk in this city of late concerning a certain picture which Queen Victoria will loan to the exposition from her private galleries. It is the work of one of the most popular artists of England, Lady Butler, formerly Miss Elizabeth Thompson. Her work is popular in England more than anywhere else, for the very natural reason that her subjects are largely patriotic, as the ones entitled “Balaklava,” “Listed for the Connaught Rangers,” “Quatre-Bras,” “Scots Grays Advancing,” etc., ail being military in character, and several picturing the glorious scenes, from the Englishman’s point of view, of the Crimean war. But her popularity depends not on this fact alone. On the contrai-y, her work has been pronounced excellent by some of the best critics and is recognized in the art world as being of a ▼ery high order. . John Ruskin spoke of it as “Amazon work.” The London

Art Journal said of the picture which will be on exhibition in Chicago: “There is no painter who can treat a subject demanding expressional force in a more temperate and reserved spirit and who can seine accurately upon sadden phases of individual character and combine the various motives of a varied group in such a way aa to secure the effect of harmonious composition. In this line of soldiers worn out with conflict, some wounded, others fallen with their dying faces cleaving the snow, there is the terrible quietude and passionless severity of absolute fact. The supreme merit of the work, in an artistic sense, lies in this very quality of perfect self-con-trol that refuses to emphasize the misery that has already occurred any further and is content with the re-

served expression proper to reality. We can readily conceive of the many inferior ways in which the same theme might have been handled. Each wound might have been turned into an occasion for the display of sentiment, and the canvas might have been filled with a number of pathetic incidents that are ‘pretty,’ perhaps, but without the force of truth. It is the modesty and seriousness of Miss Thompson’s work that entitle it to be ranked as a genuine expression of art as well as a popular picture.” The picture here referred to and which is the one that will be exhibited in Chicago is called “The Roll Call.” It represents a regiment of the grenadier guards, after a battle in the Crimea, being inspected by the colonel, who rides past in front of the ranks. The words quoted from the Art Journal contain not only a criticism but also a description of the scene to which but little can be added. The picture

LADY BUTLER’S PICTURE.

tells the story of that murderous war. i The fight with all its suffering and its | glory seems condensed in this scene I where they count, not the dead, but ! the living. One cannot help thinking ! of the barbarous Russian warfare of ! that period with its chain balls and, on J the other hand, of the charge of the light brigade at Balaklava, which has j been immortalized in poetry and which j forms the subject of another painting ! by the same artist, with all its high i courage and patriotism. The artist, Miss Thompson, now j Lady Butler, was born in 1844, and as a child evinced decided taste in draw- j ing soldiers and horses. She began to exhibit her work in 1873, when she sent to the Royal Academy a picture called “Missing,” winch attracted a great ; deal of attention. The “Roll Call,” : her most famous work, was first ex- : hibited in 1874, and was purchased by ; the queen. The picture gained a popu- j larity for itself and its author that was almost without precedent in Eng- \ land. The following year she exhibited 1 the picture of “The Twenty-eighth ; Regiment at , Quartre-Bras,” and again j a year later came “Balaklava.” Another picture, “The Return from Inkerman,” was bought by the Fine Arts ' society for £3,000. These facts are sufficient to indicate the standing of the painter and the importance of the picture which the queen has consented to loan to our exposition. It is safe to say that it will be a highly interesting attraction. Battle scenes and soldier life are always attractive to a majority of people, and it will be refreshing to see some work in this line that is truthful without the horror and ghastliness which some modern artists have carried into similar work, coming dangerously near the proper boundary lines of art. H. E. O. Heinemann.

If the estimates which have been made of the cost of draining the Zuyder Zee in Holland and the value of the land which will be reclaimed are correct, it will be a profitable undertaking which has at last been begun after 600 years’ consideration. It was in the year 1282 that the sea flooded 1.000,000 acres and destroyed seventy-two villages inhabited by the Dutch. The dam which is to be built to shut out the North sea will extend from Makum, in Friesland, to the island of Wieringen, in north Holland. When it is finished the water will be pumped into the sea and the world will be allowed to look at the thh« teenth century villages, or what is left of them. It is said that three-fourths of the reclaimed land will be worth S4OO an acre, which will add $300,000,000 to the value of the agricultural territory of Holland. As the cost of building the dam and pumping out the water will be only $95,000,000, there will be a handsome profit in the enterprise. On this side of the ocean S4OO an acre seems to be a large price for farming land, but it may be worth that amount to the Hollanders. —Fire and Water. —Mrs. Hinton—“l have been reading a description of a magazine gun. Where do you suppose the inventor found the idea for firing it so rapidly?” Mr. Hinton—“l suppose from watching the magazine poet fired.”—lnter Ocean.

ART PALACE.

Holland’s Vast Undertaking.

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

Mb. and Mrs. Wsl Strike v, living a few miles south of Goshen, the other day celebrated their sixty-second wedding anniversary. Their ages are respectively 83 and 83 years. At Logans port P. W. Moore’s stock of dry goods was damaged $30,000 by fire. Frank Dbaeger, an insane man who was taken to the Richmond asylum some time ago, from Ft Wayne, and escaped by breaking the bars of th« window in his room, and jumping to the ground, fifteen feet below, has been recaptured. The production of the Jay county oil field for January was over 90,000 barrels, being three-fourths, of the amount produced in the Indiana flelda Sarah Booker, of Columbus who shot at three men, was discharged by Judge Hard for shooting at James Wroy. She demanded her pistol and finally got it She went to a store, bought cartridges and loading the weapon, saying she would carry it next to her heart as long as she lived, and when she died she wanted it laid upon her breast with every chamber loaded and her finger on the trigger. The large dam at West Muncie is slowly washing away, and it now looks as if the whole structure will be carried down, causing a loss of over 312,000. Two witnesses from Baker township testified in the Morgan circuit court, at Martinsville, that they do not know the name of the county in which they have resided for years. They were grown men and appeared to be of fair intelligence, though quite illiterate. Thomas Kepler, a large land and mill-owner, living four miles northwest of Centerville, was found dead in the woods. The anti-caucus democrats at Indianapolis met defeat a few days ago, and the bill known as the governor’s patronagwbill will be pushed to passage. The house passed the bill making the closing hour for saloons in cities of 75,000 and upwards 12 m. instead of 11 p. m. Henry Benson, of Chesterton, was brutally beaten by highwaymen and left in a snow bank all night. At Ft Wayne the residence of Ben Rothschild was entered by thieves and $4,000 worth of diamonds were taken. George C. Wilson, of Kokomo, has fled, having realized SSOO on a forged note. Gambling ruined him. Col. Horace Scott was robbed in Indianapolis a few days since of $1,250 in checks and S2OO in cash. The thief was apprehended and all but the cash returned. At Newcastle, George Reading has brought suit against the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. for SIO,OOO damages for injuries received while crossing the track. The case has been taken to the Delaware circuit court on change of venue. Ronald T. McDonacd, of Ft Wayne, who is seeking a franchise for an electric line between Indianapolis and Broad Ripple, offered to deposit $25,000 cash and give bond for $50,000 as a guarantee of good faith. The jury in the case of Fred. Snyder, the wife beater of Peru, sentenced him to seven years hard labor in the penitentiary. Snyder is the person who, a few weeks ago, threw his two-months-old baby across the room breaking its arm. The sentence is the most severe known in Indiana law. Benjamin F. Pritchard, of Richmond, has led a career that few men ever equal. He is forty-seven years old, and recently celebrated his ninth marriage by wedding Miss Mary A. Baker, aged twenty-nine years, a native of California and a resident of Norwalk. County Clerk Amos Lemmon has instituted suit at Corydon against exClerk Alvin E. Smith, to recover an alleged defalcation of $3,500. Lemmon succeeded Smith in the clerk’s office last November. The case of Columbus Decltard, charged with the murder of his wife, came up for trial in the circuit court at Bedford the other morning. The case was given to the jury. After an allday and night deliberation the jury agreed upon the verdict, and Deckard was sentenced for a term of two years in the penitentiary. The Delaware County Farmers’ institute closed an interesting two days’ session in Muncie, the other night. Over one hundred persons interested in agricultural pursuits were present, and some very interesting papers were read and discussed. One of the most important papers was by J. J. W. Billingsley, of Indianapolis, agitating the improvement of highways. The Widow Ferguson, of Frankfort, has sued Farmer John Blanch in the sum of $15,000 for breach of promise. The Stuben County Medical society has preferred charges against Dr. H. B. Wood, charging him with conduct derogatory to the honor of the medical profession. He attended Jennie Howe, aged 17, who died from alleged malpractice. Both branches of the Indiana legislature have adopted a resolution extolling the bravery of Richard Henry Neff, a brakeman, who, despite injuries he received in a recent wreck at Peru, managed to walk back a mile and signal another train, and thus prevented a heavy loss of life. The Indiana house passed a bill which is designed to break up winter racing at Roby during the months of December, January, February and March. The provisions of the measure are to be enforced by imprisonment for six months and fines of not less than SIOO nor more than SSOO. Five men were injured in a wreck on the Big Four near Fairland, one of whom, Brakeman Palmer, may die. At Lafayette, James Carter, Roy Sheehan and Wm. Joyce, more of the ftudolph rioters, were arrested the other day, and were released on bond. Joyce and Carter are charged with assault, with intent to commit murder, conspiracy to commit a felony, riot and disturbing a public meeting. Sheehan is charged with the two offenses last named. Valentine Aciieman took arsenio with suicidal intent at Anderson. Prompt action by a doctor with a stomach pump saved, his life.