Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1885 — THE SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

THE SOUTH.

The growth of Mormonism in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia was never more marked than to-day. It is taking deep root in (he rural districts, and the number of converts is increasing at a rapid rate. The Lewis County (Tenn.) murders in August last, instead of intimidating the elders, seemed to inspire them with more zeal, and the recent act of the Legislature making it a psnal offense to preach polygamy in the State apparently has nerved them to renewed efforts. A dispatch from Chattanooga announces the arrest of two Mormon Elders in Carter County, Tennessee. The feeling ran high, and there were loud threats ofJynching the missionaries.... A cyclone at Taylor, Texas, demolished the Missouri Pacific freight house, and wrecked, the City Hall and a dozen other structures... .At Paris, Texas, Farmer Samuel P. Holmes murdered his divorced wife, her sister, Mrs. W. P. Tighe, and Prof. J. W. Youmans, hacking their bodies with a large bowie knife in a most horrible manner. Howard Cooper, the negro assailant of Miss Katie Gray, the daughter of a wealthy farmer of Rpckland. Md., was tried at Baltimore, found guilty, and sentenced to death. Miss Gray’s evidence created intense excitement, and only the stringent police protection afforded the prisoner prevented his being dragged from the ' court room and lynched A home for Confederate soldiers, established near Richmond, was formally opened last week. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee is Chairman of the Board of Managers. Goodwin Jackson (colored) was hanged ■at Clarendon, Ark... for the.,mqrder..Df„ “Sandy” Redmond (colored). Jackson was calm on the scaffold, and maintained that his death sentence was unjust, as he did not mean to kill Redmond. He declared that his soul was saved by his Maker. Jackson killed Redmond with a fence-rail Nov. 20, 1884. He was a desperate character...,. Jasper Rhodes, a mulatto, was hanged at Galveston; Tex, .The "prisoner showed a morbid indifference to his fate. Rhodes killed his wife Annie, a comely woman, in a fit of jealousy. They had quarreled and separated, the night of Oct. .21, 1884, Rhodes had an accomplice call his wife from the house where she was working and there shot her three times and then cut her throat from ear to ear with a pocketknife. For several weeks prior to his execution he spent his time in writing letters characterized by the indifference and egotism of Guiteau.

Ira Jenkins, an engineer on the Vera Cruz Railway in Mexico, who ran into a hand-car last June, has arrived at San Antonio, after spending eleven months in jail at San Juan del Rio. He claims that he could secure no attention from the American Consul... . Amos Woodruff, President of the Woodruff-Oliver- Carriage and Hardware Company, and President of the Woodruff Lumber Company, Memphis, Tenn., made an individual assignment. His liabilities are about $200,0(10, and his assets are nominally about $125,000.,