Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1898 — WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON.

The Mar department has received word from a circus company that in the event of war tu’enty-five elephants would be put nt its disposal for active service in Cuba. Consul General Lee told the Senate Foreign Committee that he believes the Maine was destroyed by Spanish officials, hut that Captain General Blanco was not cognizant of the plot. In the divorce proceedings of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Buruett, the authoress, against Dr. Su-un M. Burnett of Washington, au order has been signed for an examiner to tuke testimony, Dr. Burnett having made no ansu-er to the cknrges tiled. Secretary Long has selected names for the five steel seagoing tugs recently purchased by the government for service in connection with the defense of the ports on the Pacific and gulf consts. The tugs C. G. Coyle and Pen wood will be known as the Choctaw and Powhatan. The tugs Fearless, Vigilant and Active Mill retuin their present names. The report of the Department of Agriculture at Washington for April 1 makes the average condition of u-inter wheat 81) per cent, against 81.4 last April and 77.1 on April 1, 1890. The leading winter wheat States report averages as follows: Pennsylvania, 92; Ohio, 80; Michigan, 92; Indiana, S 5; Illinois, 75; Missouri, 81; Kansas, 101; California, G 2. The average condition of winter rye is 92.1, against 58.9 on April 1, 1897, and 82.9 on the corresponding date in 1890. There are few sections of the country from which a very satisfactory report as to the condition of winter grain has not been received. The mortality c- farm animals, both from exposure and from other causes, has been below that of the preceding Minter. Of horses 2 per cent are reported as having died from disease, against 2.1 per cent the previous year; of cattle, a mortality of 1.3 per cent from M-inter exposure and of 3.3 per cent from all causes is reported, as against I.C per cent from exposure and 3.5 per cent from all causes the preceding u'inter; of sheep, the deaths from exposure amounted .to 2.7 per cent, against 3.2 per cent the previous year, and to 5.3 per cent from all causes, against 5.5 per cent the previous year. While hog cholera hns beeu more or less destructive, the totnl losses of swine have amounted only to 9.3 per cent, against 14.4 per cent the preceding year.