Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1903 — INDIANA STATE HAPPENINGS SUCCINCTLY TOLD BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS NEWS ITEMS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INDIANA STATE HAPPENINGS SUCCINCTLY TOLD BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS NEWS ITEMS

STATE HAPPENINGS SUCCINCTLY TOLD BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS

AFTER HOME FOR STATE FAIR Board of Agriculture Wants to Buy Land Now Leased. The State Board of Agriculture will ask the next legislature to appropriate about $42,000 to buy 134 acres of land on which the State Fair grounds race track is built and which the board has an option to buy at S3OO an acre. The lease expires in 1906, and if the land is not bought by the State or the board it is possible that the State Fair will lose Its race track and the speed barns. The board took steps to close the option last summer. A suit was brought for specific performance of contract against Mrs. Theresa Smith, the owner. Since the option was taken land in the neighborhood of the fair grounds has greatly increased in value. It is said that some land near by has sold recently for as much as S7OO an acre. YOUNGEST INDIANA LAWMAKER Distinction Falls to Adolph Decker of Vanderburg County. Adolph F. Decker, representative from Vanderburg county, will be the roungest member of the next legislature. He will be twenty-three years Did on Jan. 30. He is a native of Indianapolis and moved to Evansville

with his parents w'hen a small boy. He attended the public schools, graduated from the high school, was an insurance agent and then began the study of law. Before he was twenty-one years old he was Republican chairman of the Seventeenth precinct, one of the “toughest” in the city, and known as the bloody Seventeenth. Under his direction the precinct showed large Republican gains that year. From his early years he has been active in poL itics. He was chosen as candidate for Representative over some of the oldest politicians of the county. “I have always had a desire to be in politics,” he said, “and long before I was twenty-one years old, I decided to make the race for representative. This, of course, is only a stepping stone, as I expect to go higher. I believe that any young man can in this age accomplish anything he undertakes.”

Decker -will ask the legislature to appropriate $3,000 to maintain a school for deaf-mutes in Evansville. There are sixteen pupils in the school now, which is directed by private charity. Advertise in the Papers. The merchants of Frankfort are uniting to do away with the use of trading stamps. Several of the business firms estimate that the trading stamps are costing them not less than $2,000 a year, and it is estimated that the stamps are costing the merchants of Frankfort a total of $50,000 a year. Victim of Wreck. A Mrs. Mary Francis, who was one of the victims of the McCordsville wreck, is at the home of her brother, A. C. Carver, in Alexandria. She is in a serious condition. New Gas Wells. Two new gas wells were finished a few days ago in the northern part of Miami county. One was on the farm of George Blue and the other on Schuyler Warmuck’s farm. Oil Lease Transfer. Bluffton oil property comprising 1,300 acres and leased by Superior Oil Company, was sold to Elmira (N. Y.) capitalists for $125,000. There are 47 wells on the lease. Raise Encampment Funds. A committee from the C. C. Gifford Camp, Sons of Veterans, has succeeded in raising S7OO to defray the expenses of the state encampment, to be at Peru next July. Counterfeit Dollars. Muncie banks and merchants have been worked a great deal lately on counterfeit dollars. They bear the date of 1902. Gas Fumes Bring Blindness. George Fisher of Decatur and daughter May, fifteen years old, were asleep in a room where gas was burping, and both were blind when they awoke. The gas came on strong during the night and the fumes affected their eyes. Veteran Takes Poison. At Anderson David Moriarity, thirty years old, a veteran of the SpanishAmerican war, took a dose of strychnine with suicidal intent and was found dead in a barn near his home.

TRAVELING LIBRARIES GROW Farmers Being Informed of Benefits of the Institution. idiss Merica Hoagland, organizer for the public library commission, says arrangements have been completed for a training school at Winona next summer and a series of library institutes at different points in the state in the spring. Of the traveling libraries, many of which remained in the State House uncalled for for some time, she says: “Desiring to ascertain whether the reported failure to use the free traveling libraries was due to indifference on the part of the farmers and smaller towns of the state, or to a lack of knowledge concerning them, the commission transferred the administration of the traveling libraries from the state library to its own office, room 85 State House. By correspondence and visits to a few of the Farmers’ Institutes a widespread interest is being awakened and sustained. Of the ninety-three traveling libraries only sixteen remain, and as sixty-nine requests for application blanks have been filed with the commission, additional libraries must be bought at once to meet the demands for the libraries.” GIRL WINS LITERARY PRIZES Hilda Morris, 14 Years Old, a Recognized Magazine Contributor. Hilda B. Morris, a 14-year-old high school girl of Michigan City, has won honors as a contributor to Eastern magazines, and carried off prizes for poetry, prose and an operetta. She joined the St. Nicholas league less than two years ago and since then has been contesting for prizes. Up to this time she has taken one of each class that has been offered, and for that reason, according to the rules of the contest, is eligible for no more. For a poem entitled “When School Is Done” she first won a silver badge. The poem was published in St. Nicholas in June, 1901. She next wrote “What Martha Learned at School,” a short story that appeared in St. Nicholas last February, and for this the publishers broke the rule to award her another silver badge. The gold medal was won by an operetta entitled “When Fields Are Green.” It was illustrated by the author and was printed in St. Nicholas last June. The December, 1902, number of the same magazine contains her last effort,

which brought her the highest prize offered, $5 in gold. This is another poem on the timely subject, "When Christmas Comes.” The young author has written also a story for Pearson’s Magazine, and this has been accepted and paid for. Miss Morris has had a literary inclination from earliest childhood. Internal Revenue. The collections for the Seventh internal revenue district including Terre Haute, Evansville and Vincennes, during December were $2,082,381.43. This is the third largest amount ever paid in the district. Has Bad Fall. Frank Fungate of Orleans fell from a horse hitched to a heavily loaded wagon and the wheels passed over his body, dislocating his shoulder and injuring him internally. Painters Escapes Death. Frank Gallagher, a painter, fell from a ladder which was fastened at?the top of a three-story building at Logansport, and arose from the sidewalk apparently uninjured. More Brotherly Love. The court records of Wayne county for the past ten years indicate that litigation is on the wane. The Circuit Court docket grows smaller each year. To Seek for Oil. A company with a capital stock of $1,000,000 has leased the driving park land at * Marion and is now ready to begin operations for oil. Gets Long Franchise. A thirty years’ extension of franchise was granted to George J. Marott, of Indianapolis, principal owner of the Kokomo street railway and lighting system. He was also given a thirty years’ franchise for a public steam and hot water heating system. Madison County Taxes. The tax collections for Madison county for the last six months are $222,369.91 against $199,569.78 for the same period last yew. Of this former sum, the state will get $47,490.81.

MAKES A SERIOUS ACCUSATION Farmer Charges Son-In-Law With Signing His Name. A suit brought by Thomas Carrithers of Terre Haute on a note for $75, signed by Thomas Radifer, and indorsed with the name of William Dickerson, brought out a sensational statement by the latter in his answer to the complaint. He says he never indorsed the note, which was made seven years ago, and that his name was written by Radifer, who is his son-in-law. He declares he will not pay the note even to save his son-in-law from prosecution for forgery. NOTED PRIEST DIES OF CANCER Father Oechtering of Mishawaka Expires in Fort Wayne Hospital. Very Rev. A. B. Oechtering, dean of St. Joseph’s Catholic church at Mishawaka, Ind., died at St. Joseph’s hospital in Fort Wayne. He was operated upon for tumor and later cancer of the stomach developed. Father Oechtering was an intellectual leader among the German Catholic priests of the middle west and his open letter a few months ago denouncing Archbishop Ireland’s sermon

on the Philippine friars question to the Catholic federation in Chicago brought him into special prominence. He was the first priest ordained for the Fort Wayne diocese and held charges at Delphi and Availla before being made an irremovable rector at Mishawaka in 1893.

Father oechtering was 66 years old. He was born in West Philadelphia and was a graduate of St. Mary’s seminary at Cincinnati. He inherited wealth from his parents’ estate in Germany, but devoted all to his parish. During the long period he labored at Mishawaka he erected a rectory costing SIO,OOO, a church costing $60,000 and a new school building at an outlay of $35,000. During the past ten years few national or state conventions of Catholic priests or laymen have been conducted without hearing addresses from Father Oechtering. ■ Bacteria in Glass. Glassworliers have had their attention called, by their trade papers, to a new phenomenon known as “glass disease.’’ It attacks window glass and eats it away. The most striking examples of what the “disease” can do are seen in the York cathedral, London, where the windows are crumbling. The “disease” is attributed to bacteria. Y. M. C. A. Home. The new $20,000 Y. M. C. A. building at Peru is nearing completion and will be ready for occupancy Feb. 1. J. J. Moore, railroad secretary for the Y. M. C. A. at St. Louis, was chosen secretary. Child Burns to Death. The clothing of Julia Middlebrook, age 4 years, caught fire from a grate at Jeffersonville. She was so seriously burned that she died a few hours later. Dying of Lockjaw. John Duggins of New Albany is dying of lockjaw, the fesult of a wound received Christmas day from the aocidental discharge of a toy pistoL Dies of Paralysis. Mrs. Charles E. Rogers, wife of the leader of the Goshen band, died as the result of a third stroke of paralysis. She was fifty-six years old. Quarrels, Then Dies. Carrie Wachsmuth, 27 years old, quarreled with her mother at Evansville, and while in her presence took a dose of poison and died. Standard Oil Well. A new oil well, with a flow of twen-ty-five gallons a day, was struck in Perry county on land owned by the Standard Oil company. Negro Lad’s Legs Are Frozen. Thomas Mitchell, colored, age 13, oi Chicago, was found in a gondola car at Elkhart with both legs frozen to the knees. He had ridden from Cleveland. He says his brother deserted him after discovering his condition. Want Dredging Stopped. A petition has been filed with Henry county commissioners, asking that the dredging of Blue river be stopped 1,500 feet from the intended stopping point, giving as a reason a lack of funds to pay for 't.

ADOLPH DECKER

HILDA B. MORRIS

REV. A.B. OECHTERING