Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1898 — WESTERN. [ARTICLE]

WESTERN.

H. C. St. Clair was sentenced at Idaho City, Idaho, to be hanged. Grasshoppers have begun to destroy the grain in Wells, Eddy aud Foster Counties, N. D. At Moline, Kan., Mrs. John P. Sawyer was shot and killed by her husband, who mistook her for a burglar. Gov. Budd of California has commuted the sentence of train wrecker Salter D. Worden to life imprisonment. Spreading rails caused the wreck oi u passenger train at Mauch Chunk, Pa., and the death of the engineer and news agent. At Dayton, Ohio, Mrs. Fannie Slaght was found dead in her bedroom. The coroner says she died of morphine poisoning. Crops in Nebraska were somewhat hurt by the late heavy rains. Wheat and oats are lodged and the former rusted slightly. As a result of a two months’ search, the St. Louis mounted police have run down and captured a gang of alleged freight-car robbers.

The Sixth District Populists and Democrats, in separate conventions, at St. Cloud, Minn., nominated Charles A. Towne silver Republican, for Congress. At Grand Forks, S. D., the jury in the case of J. B. Streeter, president of the recently closed First National Bank of Larimore, returned a verdict of acquittal. The new boarding house and mill of the Venture Mining Company at Leadville, Colo., were destroyed by fire. The mill was built less than a year ago. The loss is $30,000. John Lind was nominated by the three conventions at Minneapolis for Governor. J. M. Bowler was nominated for Lieutenant Governor by the Populists and indorsed by the others. A short time ago George Snyder, a rich farmer of Lima, Ohio, sold his property and converted everything into cash and then deserted his wife. Now she has committed suicide by taking poison. Engineers Edward Floyd and William Muilen were killed in a collision at Eastman's switch, near Newark, Ohio, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Brakeman Bert Henry was seriously hurt. Willis E. Stacey, an insurance agent of Leavenworth, Kan., and a member of the firm of Stacey & Bacon at Kansas City, shot himself in the head, producing a fatal wound. The cause is unknown. Suicides seem epidemic in Wyandot County, Ohio, another occurring when John Schindler, a well-known bachelor farmer, residing east of Upper Sandusky, shot himself. No cause for the deed is known.

An important event in the history of Free Masonry in Washington State occurred at the session of the grand lodge. It was the recognition of negro lodges holding charters from the grand lodges of England. George Barnard of Chicago died in the marine hospital at Sandusky, Ohio, from injuries received from the bursting of a steam pipe on the propeller Crescent City. The other two firemen, wno were scalded, will recover. At Thornton, Mo., a small station eight miles out of Kansas City, Mo., the westbound Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul passenger train crashed into an eastbound freight. Local officials of the railroad declare no one was hurt. John H. Heisel, Mayor of Brunswick, Mo., shot and instantly killed City Marshal Richard Ashby in a saloon fight. Mayor Heisel was shot twice by the marshal, one shot penetrating the abdomen and the other passing through his lungs. He will probably die. Passenger trains Nos. 5 and G on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad collided on a siding at Conroy, Colo. Four passengers and Express Agent Davis were seriously injured, and ten other passengers were slightly hurt. The wreckage delayed traffic for ten hours. The Liberty, Mo., jury trying Mrs. William Carr, on trial for mistreating her little stepdaughter Belle, whose father afterward drowned her in the Missouri river near Kansas City, has disagreed and been discharged. On Dec. 17 last Carr was hanged for his part in the crime. At Olympia, Wash., a forgery of startling character of general fund Btate warrants is alleged to have been unearthed by the State Treasurer, which at present amounts to SIO,OOO. George D. Evans, formerly deputy State Auditor, is the party said to be held responsible by the State Treasurer.

At Lincolh, Neb., Eugene Moore, exState Auditor, wns acquitted of the charge of embezzling $23,000 from the State. At a previous trial Moore pleaded guilty, reserving as his defense the fact that the law did not allow him to collect the money embezzled. He was convicted and sentenced, but the Supreme Court reversed the verdict. A plague of tramps is infesting the districts surrounding Wichita, Kan. Every freight train that comes in is loaded with these opponents of hard work. Masquerading as harvest hands, they are going through the country in gangs. Pretending to seek work, they are looting the farmers in a wholesale manner, and having obtained what plunder they can they leave the neighborhood. A mob tried to batter down the doors of the Clay County jail at Liberty, Mo. It is supposed the men were after William S. Foley, convicted of the murder of his mother, but he had been slipped ont of town pud taken to Kansas City. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded Foley’s case for n new trial. The mob, which was composed of about twenty-five men, left when it was discovered that Foley had gone. W. F. Berry of San Francisco, who has just returned from a trip across White Pass trail, says he did not find conditions there nearly so bad as bad been reported. Three miles of the railroad, have been

built, and it to to be completed to the lakes by September. Mr. Berry says the number of prospectors between the head of Lindeman and Tagish lakes is about 27,000. The forward movement’to Dawson began May 27. ’ In the Missouri Supreme Court, sitting en banc, an opinion by Judge Burgess was rendered granting the petition of Attorney General Crow for a writ granting the petition of duster against the St. Louis trust companies, which are doing a general banking business, contrary to their charters and the State banking law. The decision does not prohibit the trust companies from receiving deposits, but compels them to pay interest thereon. At St. Paul, Minn., Alfred 8. Kittson, youngest son of the late Commodore Kittson, has made an assignment to Hannah Steinbrecher, better known as Nina Clifford. When Commodore Kittson died in 1888 he left a will which decreed that Alfred Kittson should not become possessed of his property until 1896, fully four years after his 21st birthday. Kittson borrowed a great deal of money wherever he could get it. Nina Clifford let him have sums amounting to nearly $40,000. Pressed for the payment of these notes, Kittson was obliged to make an assignment, ns it is understood he has little left of the $200,000 his father left him.

John Knott, a private in Company D, Seventh Illinois infantry, shot three times at Emma Oakland, a woman barber in Minneapolis, eachabot hitting her in the left hip. The murderous assault will not prove fatal, although Knott admits he shot for her heart. The woman is now nt the Minneapolis city hospital, while Knott occupies a cell at the Minneapolis central police station. The shooting had been planned and Knott traveled 1,500 miles to accomplish his purpose. Miss Oakland is employed at the barber shop of John Anderson, Fifth avenue south and Washington avenue, Minneapolis. Knott arrived in the city direct from Camp Alger, Virginia, where his regiment is located. Calling at Anderson’s place, he stepped up to Miss Oakland, addressed her by her first name and asked her to shave him. She refused. Hethen wanted her to go out on the street with him. She again refused. They talked for a few moments and he backed out toward the door. Suddenly he drew a revolver, and before any one could interfere had fired three times at the woman. She fell to the floor and he ran out of the shop. When he reached Fourth street and Nicollet avenue he gave himself up to Officer Russell. Knott said that he became engaged to the girl in Chicago, but after he went to Camp Alger she wrote him a cruel letter, breaking the engagement. He said if she died he would soon follow her.