Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1887 — INDIANA STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

Several peach trees near Jeffersonville are in bloom. New Albany has adopted electricity for lighting purposes. ' A heavy flow of gas has been struck at Utica, Clark county. Forest fires have done great damage in several southern counties. They have " good gas well at Elizabethtown, Bartholomew county. The ninth gas well at Marion was struck Friday, giving a good flow of gas. An attempt to establish an ex-convict home at Michigan City has practically failed. .. . " Miami dnunty, and especially Peru, is jubilant over the striking of a gas gusher at Xenia.

Michigan City was visited on Saturday night by the worst storm it lias experienced for years. Ma bson a Johnson county in n, has gone crazy trying to solve the question of perpetual motion. Joseph Owens and brother, of Greensburg, engaged in a drunken fight, Monday night, and Joseph was killed. “ White Caps’’ have made their “debut” in Montgomery County. As yet they have confined their operations to writing and posting notices. An attempt was made, Monday night, to blow up the saloon in Jonesboro, Grant county, with dynamite, but the fuse went out and the attempt failed, Macy Warner, the murderer confined in the Southern prison, is said to. be dying from his persistent efforts at starvation. He is sentenced to hang March 9. 1888, but will hardly live so long Abram W Hendricks, of the law firm of Baker, Hord &Hendricks,and cousin of the late Vice President Hendricks, died of heart disease at his home in Indianapolis, Friday night. He was recognized as one of the strongest lawyers in preparing cases in the State. A well was drilled into the Trentos rock at Van Buren, Grant county, producing a large flow of gas. Tuesday the well was deepened, producing- a considerable flow of oil. In about twentywells drilled in that county this is the first one that has shown any indication of oil.

Tiie establishment of a large glass factory at Dunkirk has been secured by a donation of grounds and $6,500 in money. . Although Dunkirk is only a town of 1,000 inhabitants, the citizens arejwide awake. This factory will employ 300 hands and double the population immediately. Patents were issued for Indiana inventors, Tuesday, an follows: Alfred A. Bernardin, Evansville, bottle , cap; James F. Hatfield, Dublin, grain separator. Wm. H. McGrew, assignor of one-half to J. Myers, Peru, wire and picket- fence; Peter Rader, Kirklin, coupling for cultivators. Tne magnificent mirror painted by the Sisters of Providence of St. Marys of the Woods, Vigo county, Indiana, for the gblden jubilee of Leo XIII.,is a piece of art tba r will reflect credit upon Catholic American institutions. The seals of the holy father, of the United States, of Indiana and of the St Mary’s academic institute mark the four corners. Bailie. Daugherty, ninety years of age, left her home near Leavenworth last. Tuesday to visit her brother in Harrison county, and was found dead on Blue river Sunday evening, With a portion of her body lying in the water. She was • not seen from the time she left home I until her body was found, ami it is supposed that she became lost and wandered aimlessly around until she died of exhaustion. A novel lawsuit, involving technics, points-of law,is docketed at Rochester. D. Congor willed a tract of land to the wife of his son Samuel, stipulating .that the same should becometbe property of their unborn children after his death. Samuel and his wife deeded the land away for a saloon. Nowjoomes John, son of Samuel, who.claims the land by reason of his grandfather’s will. The present owners of the land claim that property can not be conveyed-by will to unborn children. The milk sickness ie raging in Decker township, Knox county. Cattle are dying at an alarming rate. Some of the best cattle in the township have died. Cad Orr has lost twenty-seven head, G. 0. Hurd six head, Charles Wright six head, and many others are loosers equally as heavy. Several people are also sick with this lingering And of|en fatal disease. It is producing considerable excitement in the lower end of that county. ■ The first Methodist Episcopal church in New Albany was dedicated to the service of God on the 20th day of November, 1817, seventy years ago. The church was of logs, the floor was of puncheons, that is of logs split into thicknesses of two inches and hewed smooth on the. upper side with the broad ax and adze. The seats Were also of puncheons, and the legs were set into large auger, holes bored into their bottoms. The church was lighted at night with tallow candle. The annual report of the operations of the State Treasury shows that at the beginning of the last fiscal jear, October 31, 1886, there was a cash balance on hand 0: $459,971 76 and during the year the net cash receipts were $2,86625T.54. The cash disbursements during the larger expenditures during the year, were as follows: Ingape hospital, for

maintenance, $259,047.74, additions hospitals for insane $221,746,15; deaf and dumb institute $54,828,551 blind asylum $26,148 60, soldiers’ orphans’ home $2,780.64, female reformatory $29, 991.23, reform school for hoys $60,000, prisons north and south $116,951:88 and $79 934 24, house of representatives $72,087 13, senate $45,977.81. The big canal, which is to drain the water from Four Mile prairie, near Switz City, has just been completed. The land has been purchased by Indianapolis men, who are reclaiming marsh lauds in the State. The draining of Four Mile prairie ruins one of the finest duck shooting grounds in the world. The marsh is no v dry, and the ducks which are now coming from the north, circle over it and go south. Thp draining will have the same effect as the recent ditching of the Sangamon bottom in Mason county, Illinois, which has d< htroyed ab nt 2C(),i)()0 acres of ducking ground.

Senator Ben Harrison delivered a speech to the Republican? of Hendricks county, at Danville, bn the 26th. The town was gaily decorated, and a general rally of the Republicans of the county occurred. General Hartison in his speech discused topics now receiving attention from the country at large, including equal ballot, pensions, the man agement of tbeState institutions, American industry, etc. and his utterances seemed to be approved by the large audience who heard him. His declaraiton in favor of local option was regarded as a key note. When thp DePauw will case was called in the Circuit Court at New Albany, Tuesday, the attorneys for the plaintiff, Mrs. Eilen Mclntosh, tiled an additional paragraph to her complaint, in. which.it. is charged that the execution of the will was procured by fraud and undue influence, and that, after the will was executed; St tn« one unknown to her, had erased from the instrument a clause bequeathing to the plaintiff SIO,OOO. On these grounds the case was then passed, and in view of the fact that there are about twenty-five jury cases carried over from the last term, which have precedence over this case, it is probable tha‘, it will not have a hearing

a* this te/ir. of court. In the fiscal year ended June, 30,1887, there were deposited with the mints $68,223,072 in gold and of silver $47,756,918. The value of the coinage was: Gold, $22,393,279; silver, $35,310,183. The number of trade dollars redeemed by the treasury of the United States under the provisions of the act of March, 1887, authorizing their redemption, was 7,689,036. The total earnings from all sources amounted to $8,842,819, and the total expenses and losses of all kinds to. $1,437,482. The director eslimated the stock of gold and silver coin in the United States on- November 1, 1887, to have been: Gold, $574,927,873; silver dollars, 277,1 l J,150; subbid)ary silver, $75,758,186. bran Miller and wife Alice and Simon Mull started from Vincennes last Saturday with a jug of whisky, for their home in the river bottoms. They stopped at the farm house of Geo. Hedges, where Miss Priscilla Grier was visiting. She wished to go to ’Squire Staley’s, but did not desire to go wrth that crowd. She was overpersuaded, and left, and that is the last time she was seen alive. The remains were found next morning, mangled and burned and the ground soaked with blood. Miller and Mull claim they know nothing ot herdeath. and sa they were so drunk they don’t know what,happened during the night. The body was found„on Sunday morning by Mrs. Miller, who went to look for a dollar she had lost. The Millers and Mull are under arrest. The report of a shocking e.-se.of povI erty and- neglect comes from Grant comity. Last Saturday Henry LoekwbbdTiucr wife, re§l d i r;g ten in lies from Marion, werfe summoned before the prosecutor to give evidence in a criminal case. They are wretchedly poor, and their three children, aged eight,four and eighteen months, were left alone in a hovel that admitted the snow that accoiripspied the blizzard that broke Saturday morning. On their way home Saturday evening. Lockwood and wife were nearly frozen and stopped with an acquaintance on the way. On their arrival home Sunday morning they found the younger child, a little girl, frozen to death and the otl er two so badly chilled and frost-bitten that they could scarcely move or speak. The eldest boy said/he awoke during the night and found “bis sister out in the snow beside the bed, and that when he pulled her in she was stiff. She was - doubtless dead then. The sixteenth annual report of the managers and officers of the female reformatory were made to the Governor Wednesday. The board of manage)®, Mesdames Hendricks, Walker and James, in their report show that there are fifteen officers and employes in the institution and they add: “The management has always been humane, judicious and economical ” There are fiftytwo inmates of the penal department and 120 of the reformatory proper. There have been three decths in the during the year, and the' gross earnings of the institution bave beeri $3 810 58, and the cost of materials $1,2914)1. During the year $29,991 53 have been dra v i from the StareTreaßury-on account of the institution. ?3 591 prid out for permanents and ' $1,339.07 paid in from varions Counties; leaving thejtotal cost of the institution

to the for the year, $10,519.88 ’ The managers say that the institution greatly needs a hospital, a chapel, and a high brick wall inclosing the grounds. The State Female Reformatory, , Reports have come to t.ie ear of Governor Gray several times recently that inmates of lhe Female Reformatory at Indianapolis were being inhumanely treated, and last week he investigated the charges for himself by going to the institution find' examing the inmates In the statements he made to an Indianapolis News reporter about the investigation, Monday, the Governor was very careful, and evidently desirous of avoiding anything like a sensational report. He said that he had ascertained that there “were two methoi ls of punishment in the institution. One was by whipping the girls with a strap, and when be v,ent there he asked to see the last girl who had been unwished- in this way. She had been whipped two days before he saw her, but even then there were black and blue stripes on ner arms and l>ack, silowihffwhere the strap had struck her. A more common form of punishment was to pnt refractory inmates in a cell, through the door of w hich were two boles a foot apart and three or four feet!from the floor. The woman’s arms wexe put through there and handcuffed together on the outside, so that she was compelled to remain in an uncomfortable standing position. Sometimes she was placed with her back to the door and her hands fastened behind her in this way. One girl testified that she had been kept for three days in this position, but was allowed

to lie down and sleep at nights. * Such a punishment,” said t.he Governor, “I regard as unnecessarily cruel and useless, and I shall recommend to the Board of managers tliat lt be entirely dispensed with.” The Governor added that the inmates of the reformatory complained bitterly of insolence and insults on the part of certain attendants, and while he was not prepared to say that these complaints were well founded, he Was convinced that the attendants and officers were entirely too free in talking to the prisoners. Miss Kelly, the superintendent, said she had reformed this partially since she had been

there. The whippings are generally administered by the assistant superintendent, although there had been cases in which, the services of a man- who was | employed about < the institution had been used in subduing refactory prisoners. The officers insisted that it was absolutely necessary to severely 1 punish some of the girls, citing the case of one named Ida McCoy, who would persist in turning on the gas in her room, for the purpose of suf locating herself and others, so she said. The Governor urged upon the officers the necessity for looking after such matters very carefully, for the sake of the good name of the institution, if for no other reason. Instances of punishment by whipping and handcuffing, he said, were common, and he should recommend that hereafter girls who were refractory or troublesome should be kept in solitary confinement, in strong cells, until they became more tractable. Experience had demonstrated to him that women very much disliked to be governed by women and this was the cause of much trouble at the . institution.