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

IN GENERAL.

It has been decided to hold the international conference between the United States and Canada at Quebec July 15. The Canadian representatives will be Sir Wilfred Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright ind Sir Louis Davis. The schooner Gypsum Princess of Parrsboro, N. S., was sunk by a collision with the North German Lloyd steamer Ems off Nantucket Shoais. The captain cf the Gypsum Princess, his wife and their eldest boy, a girl of 14 years and a toy of 5 years were drowned. Six of the crew were saved by the Ems. The claims of Canadian sealers arising «ut of seizures made by the United States In Behring sea were finally settled by the payment to Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British ambassador, of approximately $473 ,000, being the full amount of the claims as settled under an agreement between the United States and Great Britain. Capt. John Bartlett, with a crew of Hevea men, sailed from St. Johns, N. F., for New York to man Lieut. Peary’s arctic steamer Windward, which will leave that city on a polar expedition about July 1. All the crew are picked men under 28 years of age, carefully chosen to resist the Vinter’s confinement, possibly within the arctic circle. The Windward’s destination is Sherard Osborne fjord, west of GreenItnd, a point about 200 miles farther north than Peary’s previous anchorages. Peary will take an assistant and a surgeon, making fifteen all told in the ship’s company. The steamer Hope, the Windward’s sister ship, will sail June 25 for Sydney, Cape Breton, where she will load coal .going thence with a party of Peary’s friends on a cruise northward as far as Littleton Island, where she will bid Peary’s men adieu before they enter upon the three years’ absence from civilization. As the steamer City of Seattle was leaving Taiya, Alaska, her passengers noticed a glare a few miles up the trail, which lit up the snowy peaks as though the sun was setting. Telephonic messages were sent along the trail, and it was learned that the glare was the reflection of a great conflagration which was raging at Canyon City, where about 400 men had their habitations, about nine miles above Taiya. Fully half the town, all the houses on the western bank of the Taiya river, except the power house of the Taiya Tramway Company, had been destroyed, and the fire was reaching across the river. It was feared that the remaining cabins and buildings would also feed the flames. The population of Canyon City, according to the latest arrivals from the locality, is about 400, and about 200 cabins and other buildings had been erected there. As far as could be learned no lives had been lost in the flames, but much property and many outfits had been swallowed up. Bradstreet’s commercial report says: “Unprecedented foreign trade totals, involving heavily increased shipments of breadstuffs, provisions, raw cotton and manufactured products; flattering crop prospects, pointing to a very large yield of wheat and most other cereals, as well as cotton; profitable railway operations, as reflected in relatively higher gains in net than in gross receipts; activity in nearly all lines of manufacturing except some textile branches; prices for most staples showing heavy advances over the preceding year; bank clearings exceeding all previous records at this dote; a volume of new demand limited in the East and South to midsummer dullness, but in the West and Northwest comparing favorably with records of previous years, and a low rate of business mortality, are all features of the general business situation at the present time. The collapse of Leiter and his deal in wheat, with the demoralization of prices which was concomitant, has been followed by a quieter feeling in cereal markets, but export demand, partly on early placed orders, has improved, and more is doing by flour millers. It is true that the continued wet weather in sections west of the Mississippi is affecting wheat harvesting, but trade opinion leans to a crop of 700,000,000 bushels of wheat and large yields of most other cereals, with corn promising least favorably. Wheat exports for the week aggregate 4,380,787 bushels, against 4,730.982 bushels last week and 2,547,319 bushels in this week a year ago. Corn exports are also slightly smaller than last week, amounting to 4,106,000 bushels.” ,