Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1885 — INDIANA STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

—Will Clark stabbed and killed Jacob B. Vans at Vincennes in a quarrel about a woman. ! —Goorge Johnson, colored, lit yearn old, resides in Posey County Poor House, and Dolly Fagan, also colored, aged 107, lives four miles west of Evansville. —At Bloomington, James BmaH, an old and influential citizen, was found dead, sitting against a tree in tjje.. University grounds. Death is supposed to have been caused by 1 heart disease. —The Indianapolis Journal, in answer to a correspondent, says; “There is no sal- . ary attached to the office of Sheriff of Marion C’onnty, his recompense coming in fees. These will amount to an annual income of not less than s2s,<;o'\”, —Mrs. Louisa Zeigman 105 years of age, stopped in North Vernon recently for a few hours, on her way to* visit her daughter in Vevay. She remembers well when there was nothing tint a small fort at Louisville and Cincinnati, and she says that her uncle, James Grimes, dag the first well in Cincinnati. Bhe is the mother of ten children, all l.ving, and has 110 grandchildren, i, —Charles George, of Lafayette, has comj menced suit in the Circuit Court of Tippecanoe County for the sum of SIO,OOO against the Big Four Railroad Company. In July last plaintiff boarded a train of the company’s road for the purpose of stealing a ride. He was ordered off, but refused to go, when an employe drew a revolver and shot him in the thigh. The ball has never be£n extracted, and he is rendered a cripple for life.

—A family named Lambert, consisting of man. wife, and a daughter pbout 13 years old, moved to Laurel about a month since, and by their outrageous conduct so enraged the citizens that about forty of the latter quietly organized, and, proceeding to the Douse Lambert lived in, quickly rendered it uninhabitable, and gave this family, as well as another of like reputation, twenty-four hours to leave town. — Indianapolis News. Gov. Gray is raid to have indicated to the officers of the fitite militia dating the La Porte encampment that he would recommend the next General Assembly to make an appropriation for the militia service, and he will also recommend that the companies he, as far as possible, more equally distributed over the Btate. He favors a consolidation of companies, and a large allowance for the older and more efficient organizations. —The financial statement of the Jeffer- - sonville Penitentiary for July shows the earningß of the institution for the month were $701,505; disbursements, $832,275. The Warden says that the prison is' not self-sustaining because Jeffersonville and vicinity afford a poor market for the prison labor. He favors a removal to some other locality on that account The prison noy contains 568 inmates, only 85 per cent of w hom arc profitably employed. The health of the inmates is good. The good-time law continues to work excellent results, find it has largely reduced the necessity for physical punishment. The use of the “cat” has been entirely abolished. Punishment is now by confinement and by the deprivation Of privileges. ; "

A special from Lafayette says: “Through the instrumentality of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union a most infamous crime has just been unearthed in this comrnuaitv, that for fiendishnes3 and brutality is almost without a parallel. A_Constable has been detected in serving bogus warrants on females, charring them with the commission of some petty offense, arresting them, and then, on pretenso cf taking them before a magistrate, has conveyed them to his own private room, where they have been compelled to submit to the basest indignities. The arrests are always made after dark, and the victims have sometimes been detained for twenty-four hours in this vile den to which other men than the proprietor have access. The fellow was confronted yesterday and charged with the crime, when he owned up and gloried in his villainy. The ladies of the W. C. T. U. are after the offender, and will see meted out to him the fullest extent of the law.”

—A convict while at work in the Indiana State Prison was injured through a defect mono of his tools. He sued the State, and the Attorney General give an opinion which is of general interest. He maintains that the State is not liable to an action in its courts for the recovery of damages. It may sue, but cannot be sued. He discusses the question at issue at some length,, and makes numerous citations. The fact that the State cannot be sued and coerced by action in its courts does not necessarily settle that a party has no claim against the State. It is proper to suppose the State will satisfy, by proper legislative action, any just claim agiinst it. The doctrine of respondent snperio does not apply to the State, and, if it did, a convict does - not? come within the rnle of respondent superio, because he is not a voluntary servant for hire and reward, nor is the State his master in any ordinary sense. The Attorney General also maintains the following propositions: Laches are never imputable to government. “The State is not affected by the misfeasance, willfulness. laches of or nnauthor.zed exercise of power by its officers. ” —Pordyce Mahan, aged thirteen, was running in the yard of his father’s house, near Versailles, with his little sister, aged five years, on his back, when he accidentally ran into a well, which had been left un'covexed, and Loth were drowned. ■ J —Mrs. David Houser, an aged lady at Somerset, fell down a flight of stairs and sustained fatal injuries. The both limbs were tom out. 7 „ At Wallingsford, Conn., a boy of 16 and a girl of 14 were married.