Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1884 — THE SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

THE SOUTH.

In self-defense, John P. Martin killed Floyd Tolliver at Moorehead, Ky., on Dec. 2. Martin was taken from officers at Farmers’ Station by “regulators,” and riddled with bullets..., .Included in the Dakota exhibit at New Orleans is a miniature working elevator, eight by ten feet, with glass sides and roof, which cost $1,200. . Mary Brannan, who four years ago was a favorite in the highest social circles of Baltimore, was released from the bridewell, and ended her career by flinging herself on the track beford a passenger train. It is estimated by the correspondent of the Louisville Courier-Journal that 400 people have perished in three counties of Kentucky by the -pestilence. It is also declared that within the last three months 200 people have died, chiefly by pestilence, in Harlan County alone. The population of Harlan County is 5,278, and that of the three counties specified—Harlan, Bell, and Knox—is 21,420, and 400 deaths would give a death rate of 19 per 1,000 in three months, more than the average annual death rate in the United States. The figures given for Harlan County would make the mortality for the quarter more than twice as great as the average mortality for the year. The ravages of the pestilence in Kentucky have been at least as great, in proportion to the population, as those of the cholera at Marseilles and Toulon.

At least twenty negroes lost their lives by the capsizing of oyster-boats in the Rappahauock River during a storm.... Lewis Fox, manager of the Tate plantation, near Little Rock, was shot dead while sitting at a table writing, the assassin having fired through a window. Six convicts confined iu the convict camp at Coal Creek, Tenn., made a break for liberty. They were surrounded by a strong cordon of guards, but thought that by making a bold dash they could escape in the confusion. They had run a few hundred yards, when the guards recovered and a posse was sent in pursuit. They followed a short, distance, and when they were in range called to the prisoners to halt. They continued straight ahead, whereupon the guards opened fire. At the first volley four of the fugitives fell, and the other two surrendered. Two of the prisoners were killed by the fire, and two more mortally wounded... .The Supreme Court of West Virginia lies decided. that _a_ railroad charter is merely a license, the right to fix freight and passenger charges being vested only in the Legislature.... Hezekiah Brown, a colored preacher, of Clarksville, Md., was lynched by a mob for marrying a weak-minded white girl 17 years old. . . .Judge T. J. Ford, his brother-iu-lnw, and three others were indicted at New Orleans for the assassination of A. H. Murphyi.. .Twenty-five thousand children participated in the Sunday-school celebration of the Methodists at Baltimore.