Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1886 — THE SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

THE SOUTH.

A bill prepared by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia to facilitate the settlement of the debt of that commonwealth has been introduced in the State Senate'. It provides for the appointment of tliree commissioners to fasten upon West Virginia one-third-of the indebtedness at the outbreak-of the war. Hr. C. H. McCormick suspended operations in his reaper factory at Chicago, after yielding in the matter of wages, because the discharge of five non-union men was demanded by the workmen. The number of persons thrown out of employment is fourteen hundred.... A convention of third and fourth class Postmasters has been iu session in Chicago. A number of ree-„ ommeudations for the improvement of the service were reported by aud adopted iu the form of resolutions. ' The verdict of the Coroner's jury in the. ease of the burning of the Ehle family, near Plymouth, Wis., was that the fire was the result of an accident. The hired man is generally believed to b^ innocent. George Q. Cannon, the noted Mormon, was brought into court at Salt Lake, Utah, and hel»l in $45,000 bonds. His attempt to escape,from the officers by jumping from a train resulted in a broken nose and some bruises. A Nevada Sheri! was offered $1 ,000 to permit Gannon to escape, but rei fused the Bribe. A dispatch from Salt Lake says: “Thomas Birmingham, to-day, in (be Third District Court, was sentenced

*0 six months’ imprisonment and 3 SOO fine. Abranj H. Cannon took the witness stand in his unlawful 'cohabitation case. Wfoen asked if two women were his wives and he had lived with them, he replied: ‘They are, thauk God. I have lived with them as charged.’ Prompt conviction followed, Henry Dinwoody pleaded, guilty, , withdrawing his plea of ncit guilty of unlawful cohabitation, and promised obedience to the law. John Bowen, convicted on his own evidence, asked immediate sentence, and was given siXijndnths’ imprisonment and S3OO line.” ..'.Captain Lockwood, of the Engineer Corps, has reported to the Secretary of War (hat the railway bridge spamrijig the river at St. Joseph, Mich., is an obstruction to free and safe navigation.... The Rev, Jesse B. Braley, of Nortonville, Ivy., drowned himself at St. Louis to forestall an investigation into his private habits. Judge James P. Cole, a prominent citizen of Galveston, who owned much of , the unoccupied property Within the city limits, was found dead in his office.... At a settlement near Palarm, Arkansas, the James family, of six persons, was killed by a negro. Small-pox has been declared epidemic at Fort Worth, and the Mayor of Dallas has proclaimed quarantine.... At Martinsburg, W. Va., a negro named Burns was taken from jail and hanged, after he had confessed a criminal' assault on a white girl..' .Recently* at Atlanta, Ga., a son of David W. Henderson, a street-car driver, lost a leg by being run over by a ear on which his father held the reins. Henderson, Sr., now sues the company for SIO,OOO damages... .A Savannah (Ga.) special reports: “Three days ago John Graham, an insane negro, 30 years of age", living six mile? from the city, disappeared from home. About the same time two sons of John Bird, a negro, aged respectively 8 and 10 years, also mysteriously disappeared. This morning the mother of Graham started out to search for him, She had not gone half a mile from home before a flock of buzzards, apparently unusually disturbed, attracted her attention. Going to the spqt over which they were hovering, she found the corpses of two negro boys lying on their backs on the ground. The bodies were tied tightly together by ropes about their hands and feel, and by other ropes about their necks. The bodies were made fast to a small tree beneath which they lay. Marks about (he necks proved conclusively that death had been caused by strangulation.” The steamer Bladen, plying between Wilmington and Fayetteville, N. C., caught fire just before reaching her wharf at the firstnamed port, and, owing to the inflammable nature of her cargo, consisting of resin, spirits of turpentine, and eottou, was immediately enveloped in flames. The pilot headecl lier for the nearest available wharf, and the passengers succeeded in escaping, some by boats from adjoining vessels and others by jumping overboard, when they were quickly rescued. The steamer landed agamst the wharf of the New York and Wilmington Steamship Company, and the fire was quickly communicated to the sheds and warehouses thereon. All the wharves and sheds being saturated with resin and turpentine the spread of the fire was rapid, and, despite* the efforts of the firemen, became a disastrous conflagration. There was a gale blowing from the southwest, and soon the block? on the waterfront were burning furiously. Finally the fire was gotten under control, but not until it had destroyed $1,500,000 worth of property. ... A mob broke into the jail at Henrietta, Tex., to lynch A. A. Steagall, who was awaiting trial for living in incest with .his own daughter, fqr murdering her child of which he was the father, and for poisoning his daughter. They strung the wretch up, but the Sheriff arrived in time to save his life.