Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1898 — WESTERN. [ARTICLE]

WESTERN.

At Portsmouth, Ohio, the Tenth district Republican congressional convention, after one of the most remarkable political contests on record, nominated Stephen .1. Morgan of Jackson County on the 1,477 th ballot. The Ohio Legislature has given trial juries the option of saying whether a firstdegree murderer should be electrocuted or imprisoned for life. Pardoning jMiwer is o(>erative only on proof of innocence beyond reasonable doubt. The concentrator of the Morning mine at Wallace, Idaho, was destroyed by tire. The loss is $100,(XX) and insurance $60,000. A new concentrator will be built. Three hundred miners will be thrown out of employment for six months. Roy Flack, 13 years old, and his 12-year-old cousin, Orville Groves, engaged in a friendly boxing bout at Chillicothe, Ohio. Both were good boxers.- Groves finally hit Flack a blow under the heart and the latter dropped to the floor dead. Officers attempted to arrest a gang of thugs in Coffeyville, Kan. The gang opened fire on the officers, killing William Kime, city marshal. One of the gang was wounded and the rest escaped, but were captured ard brought back by a posse. Gov. Ix»e has called a special session of the SotMh Dakota Legislature to make appropriations for maintenance and equipment of the State militia. The last Legislature cut off all -appropriations. Twenty-five thousand dollars is required. The 18-year-old aon and 14-year-okl daughter of the late Gua. Leftwich, editor of the Gallatin (Mo.) Democrat, have been indicted for his murder. The poison taken by him is supposed to have been intended for the stepmother of the children. After a long consultation HrA. Dossier and President Samuel Gompers, President Lynch ami others at Toledo, Ohio, reached an agreement at a stated time to discontinue employing girls in the bicycle factories in Toledo, Thompsonville, Conn., Toronto and Westfield, Mass. Col. Alexander Warner, president of the defunct Baxter Bank of Baxter Springs, Kaiu has been found guilty of receiving deposits while the bank was in an insolvent condition. The penalty is a fine of not more than $5,000 or imprisonment in the penitentiary tor not more than live years, or both. Frank Hill of Minnesota, who was ap-

pointed consul at Santos, Brazil, in November, 1890. and who still holds that commission, has been taken to'the emergency hospital in Washington, D. C.. anf- ’ sering from insane delusions, the effect, it is stated, of alcohol and drugs. He is 36 or 38 years of age and is unmarried. Wheat in Missouri is recovering where damaged by the recent cold waves and is generally looking well. Pastures and meadows are making a good start as a rule. Stock has been put on pasture in some counties, early fruits are now in full bloom in the central and southern sections. J The big clothing house of Browning, King & Co. in Kansas City, Mo., is in the hands of a deputy sheriff, representing the public administrator in the city of St. Louis, Dr. William C. Richardson. Henry W. King, a member of the firm, died in Chicago. There being no member of the firm resident in Missouri, nor heirs of the deceased in the State, the public administrator in St. Louis secured possession of the store in Kansas City. Men arriving at Chamberlain, S. *D., from White river bring details of a disastrous prairie fire, which swept over practically the whole of Rosebud Indian reservation, destroying hundreds of cattie and horses. So far as known no Indians lost their lives. The fire swept over a greater part of a tract eighty miles long and sixty wide, extending to the Nebraska line. It is supposed to have been started by a white man traveling overland to Valentine, Neb. It was the worst prairie Are sinee the one which destroyed Mouut Vernon nine years ago. The Santa Fe overland train No. 1, west bound, was held up by two men at the Mojave river bridge, two miles west of Oro Grande, Cal. Engineer Gifford was killed by one of the robbers, whose companion was mortally wounded by Gifford in an exchange of shots. The robbers rifled the mail car and secured the registered mail. They then backed down to the train again and were proceeding to the express car, when Engineer Gifford opened fire on them with a revolver. He fatally wounded Paul Jones of Oro Grande, but the other roblier escaped, after shooting Gifford with a charge of buckshot, - - 4' The jury iu the case of. John Joyce, on trial nt Maryville, Mo., charged with having murdered it. 1). Montgomery iu Maryville Dec. 21, returned a verdict of not guilty. There was an affecting scene in the court room when the result was announced. Joyce cried like a child, and his three little daughters flung their arms around his neck and wept with him. One of the children, Aggie, 8 years of age, climbed up to the bench aud kissed Judge Anthony, who presided during the trial. The verdict is regarded as another vindication of the unwritten law that a man has a right to defend his home, it having been charged that Montgomery caused Joyce’s wife to leave him and attempt to get a divorce in South Dakota, that he might afterward marry her. A sensation has been created at El Paso, Texas, by the arrival from Chuichupa, a village in the heart of the Sierra Madre Mountains, Mexico, of J. Newton Fowler with the news of the discovery by himself and Morris Singleton of the famous lost gold mine of Tiofa. The discovery was made on the evening of April 6, in a deep, narrow canyon, through which runs the Rio Chico, a tributary Of the Aras river. Mr. Fowler, while chasing a wounded deer, came across the -ruins of three Arastas, and on investigating discovered a stone wall enclosing an oi>ening. Cutting through the wall, an old mining shaft was displayed and at its mouth were a number of crude old mining implements. Going down the shaft a few feet some very rich specimens of gold were found. If this is the old Tiofa mine,.as is firmly believed, Mr. Fowler and liis associates will receive $15,000 in gold from the .Mexican Government, a standing reward it has offered for the discovery of the mine. The roeords of the mine were in the hands of the priests, who have searched the country for it, and the records state that the shaft is walled in. More than one man has lost his life hunting for this mine. In 1882 Pitsican, then chief engineer of the Texas and Pacific road, was killed by the Apache's while he was searching for this mine. J. Newton Fowler is from Brooklyn, N. Y., where his father is a contractor and builder,’and Singleton is an old ex-Texas ranger. The Tiofa mine was rich in gold and was wailed in when its owners were driven out of the country by the Indians in 1819.