Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1881 — THE STATE. [ARTICLE]

THE STATE.

At a band contest at Anderson, the Jonesboro band was awarded the first piize. *. Prof. Gebest, of Madison, is organising a brass band, the musicians all to be ladies. The Catholics of Oonneraville propose building a new cathedral adjoining 81. Gabriel’s school. Bill Myers, a bad character of Wabash, tied his wife by the thumbs and applied a heavy black snake whip to her bare*bock until she fainted away. The woman’s back is fearfully cut. Officers are after the brute. An adopted daughter of the late Jesse Meharry, Mrs. Lydia Wilson, of Lafayette, will contest the will on the ground that she has not been treated in it “in all respects as his own child,” according to the contract of her adoption.

Willie Brown, a 18-year-old son of James Brown, of Sugar Creek township, Shelby county, shot his six-year-old brother, While playing with a revolver. The ball entered the thigh near the groin, producing a very dangerous wound. 1 On Monday night Nat Garrish, a saloon keeper of Fortville, and Charley Shaffer, hi 3 bar tender, engaged in a fight, in which Garrish was badly hurt. Afterward Garrish’s saloon was stoned. In tbfe melee Mrs. Garrish was struck with a stone and seriously injured. The twelfth annual convention o' the Youug Men’s Christian association, of ludiana, will be held in Richmond, on the 22d to 2-sth insta. The eessioQs of the convention will be held ia the First Presbyterian church. Certificates granting reduced rates over all lines operated by the P., C. & St. L. railway, (Panhandle! can be bad upon application to L. W. Munhall, Indianapolis. A strange and fatal malady has broken out among the horses of Wabash. Iu the earlier stages of the disease the animal is feverish and refuses food. Later his limbs swell and he is unable to move about. Jiist before death ensues great lumps and welts appear on the sides aud back, and the breast is enormously swollen. The disease runs its course in about ten days. About fifty horses are sick .in Wabash alone, and there have been two deaths.

Earnest Jacobs, of Decatur, drove home with too much whisky iu him. He began to fight his horse in the stable, when the animal struck back, doubling the unfortunate man up against a tie-piece of the building, from which he bounced back underneath the horse. He lay there nearly all the evening, and when louud was nearly trampled to death. His injuries are supposed to be fatal. On Monday Jack Davis, who has beeja working for Mark Austin, at Winchester, for some time past, eloped with the latter’s fourteen year old daughter. Davis Is aCarolinian, about twenty-four years old. At Harrisville Mr. Austin fuund Davis,' and with him what appeared to be a young boy, but which was his girl, who had donned boy’s clothes ana had her hair cut close off. Bne returned with her father without any hesitation, and claimed that she had been intimidated. Water is so scarce in Brown county that John Hickey, who is hauliugdogs from the woods, is compelled to take water back in barrels for his men and oxen. Rattlesnakes discovered where the water was kept, ana, for tbo last week or two have congregated around the barrels at night to the great fear of the men and fright of the teams, some nights keeping up a fearful hissing and rattling. A number of the snakes have been killed, but still the men are afraid to sleep near the barrels.

It has Just been discovered that one of the stations on the Underground railroad was located two miles south of Wabash. The bpilding stands on a bill overlooking the Lafontaine and Wabash turnpike, and is a plain brick structure. It was built by a man named Elias Thomas, in the year 1856, and oy him was used as a residence. No one knew of this being a place of refuge for slaves until recently a new family moved in, and an examination revealed the vault for secreting"passenger*” en route for Canada. Theloundation of the house is sunken deep into" the ground, formiog a sort of basement. This cellar is divided into two compartments by a stone wall. One side is entered by a door, and the ctber apparently is without an apperture. A trap-door in the floor above, however, which was always covered by a carpet, gave easy means of access, and many colored men were let down into th*e depths of the mysterious cellar while on their way from the south to Canada. It is said that anotfier station on the liue is situated near La Gro.

While returning from the country, a j party of picnickers heard a great com- | motion in a house on the Liberty pike, near the city limits of Richmond, there were screams, cries, yells, groans and oaths, mingled with a crash of furniture and sounds like people were scuttling and falling inside. There was not a light visible,-and they approached j the building cautiousty, ana by peering in at the window they could see j ! **ven or eight men and women lying on the floor with their heads covered with quilts, table cloths and coats, and behind the house were several more so ; badlv scared that tbev could hardly ' *P*** They said tFiat, while two I «piritualists from the dty and one : from Fort Wayne, were holding a aearweln ihe dining room, the spirit* MrMdtd like a flash of lightning and -threw • heavy extension table uo In the air and let It fall with such force that It was broken, the chairs were knocked from side to side and broken, the dishes were smashed,and in the m id* t of tbe uproar the ghoet of a man who committed suicide near there appeared carrying his booU In bis hanas. The door flew back on Its hinges aiul he walked away leaving the house in darkness and silence. A shoemaker, who was in tbe company, said he mended the suicide’s boots the day before he took bi» life and Le recognised those the ghost carried by the patebea

A targe quantity of the plunder taken by the “sbarp-curvo” robbers on the Chloago and Alton train has been recovered, mm