Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1889 — THE NEWS OF THE WEEK. [ARTICLE]

THE NEWS OF THE WEEK.

DOMESTIC. , White Caps have appeared in, Herkimer county, New York. In 1888, 96,000 Germans emigrated, principally to America. f Franklin county, Mass., is excited •ver the discovery of gold. Governor Hill was inaugurated Governor of New York on the Ist, for the third time. < jE. O. Wolcott has been selected by the Colorado Republican caucus to succeed Bowen in the U. B. Senate. The new law substituting electricity for hanging as a method of death went into effect in New York on the Ist. During the year 1888, 383,595 immigrants were landed at Castle Garden, an increase of 1,977 over the previous year. It is charged that a ring of contractors have been operating the Kansas State Prison and made profits of $450,000 by it. ' . -

Mrs. Jay Gould’s condition shows no material change and her physician states that she is liable to pass away at any time. * Sullivan and Kilrain signed articles, on the 7th, at Toronto, for a fight to the finish, July 8, near New Orleans, for SIO,OOO a side. lack of snow in Michigan woods has thrown hundreds of men out of employment. Many of the lumber camps have shutdown. An unknown man at- Toledo fondled -a can of dynamite with an ax. He spread himself all over a vacant lot. Nobody else hurt. At Findlay, 0., Saturday night, leaking gas filled a sewer and exploded, tearing up Main street and fatally hurting Alonzo Dickens. Chas. H. Wright, paying teller of the Second National Bank of St. Paul, is a defaulter and has escaped. Wine, cards and women caused his downfall. J. W. W. Woods, a diver, in the employ of a wreckage company, was suffocated on the 4th by the air pipe which supplied him becoming stopped up. Four of the original founders of the K. of L. have issued an address claiming that it has been diverted from its original pupose, and calling for a convention for the good of the order. Rev. William A. Simpkins, of Salina, Kan., was committed to’ the insane asylum, his mind having been affected through internal dissensions in the church of which he was the pastor. A caucus of the Tennessee Legislature has endorsed Wm. Baxter, of Knoxville for a Cabinet position and a committee will call upon the President-elect to present the gentleman’s good points. A boiler in a grist mill at New Hope, W. Va., exploded, Saturday. The mill was completely wrecked, and four farmers, who were in the building, were blown to atoms. Four others were badly injured.

The Knights of Labor and Miners’ Union, rival labor organizations at New Castle, Wy. T., are at war with each •ther. Several persons have been hurt and possibly killed, though details are meager. The steamboat Paris C. New Orleans to Cincinnati, struck a snag at Hermitage Landing, near Baton Rouge, La., Saturday evening, and sank. Five of the cabin crew, two firemen, and a passenger were drowned. The vessel and cargo are a total loss. The long strike on the C., B. &Q. R. R. has finally been settled by a compromise. The company is to give old striking engineers preference when vacancies occur, and the engineers are to withdraw the boycott that has been so disastrous to the “Q’s” business. A dispatch from Lexington, Ky.. says: Sentinel ’Wilkes, bay stallion, six years old, was sold, Monday night, by W. H. Crawford, this couniy, to W. C. France, owner of Red Wilkes, also of this countv, for $25,600." He is by

George Wilkes: dam by Sentinel. . Four farmers near Fentress, Miss., Attempted, on the 3d, to settle aland dispute by the shotgun method,andsucceeded admirably. Two of them were killed and two wounded, as were also two women who appeared on the scene. They were all prominent citizens. J. Merideth, seventy-five years old, living at Monticello, 111., has "been for some years a victim of abdominal Jropsy and his physician estimated that during the past year he has removed at least two barrels of water from his patient, having tapped him fifty-four times. The Windsorville Casimere Mills, at Windsorville, Connecticut, owned by the Wind«orville Mill Company and Frank S. Jordon, of New York, were burned at 5 o’clock, Tuesday morning. The mill, stock, machinery, with a boarding house, are a total loss. Loss, $40,000; insured, $20,000. J. L. Babcock, a young man of Ann Arbor, Mich., who will inherit $50,000 of his uncle’s property if he marries within five years is receiving so many love missives that he is required to employ a secretary to answer them. He has issued a card to “moneyable ladies,” extending thanks and wishing them a happy new year. Seven colored people, including two women, were arrested near Arcola,' Miss., two weeks ago, folr drugging the family of Colonel Praxton and setting fire to his house. Two of them confessed. Monday night information was deceived that all the prisoners have disappeared, and nobody seems to know anything about them. Mr. Andrew Squires, the Cleveland, 0., lawyer who went to London to secure sl6o.'* 0, which Thomas Axworthy, Cleveland’s defaulting Treasurer, had deposited in a bank there, returned Monday with the money. Axworthy is now on the ocean en route to Canada, where he will remain until he can enter the United States without fear of arrest. Fifty deliberate mtirders and only one hanging is the terrible record that Chicago makes for 1888. Of the forty-nine remaining, thirteen have been convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. fourteen have escaped through legal jugglery, five have added to their original crime that of self-mur-der, and six, although known to the police, have never been captured. Dr. John Nyer, a prominent dentist of Hazelton, Pa., shot and killed his wife, Tuesday, and then himself. The deed was evidently a premeditated double suicide. The wife had been an invalid for many years, and the husband spent the greater portion of his large income in trying to get relief for her. The affection of the couple was strong. He left

a note giving the troubles they were having With his wife’s relatives as the incentive for their action. The Electric Sugar Refining Company of New York has been defrauded, they claim, out of a million dollars by Henry C. Friend and his associates, whose so-called “secret process” of refining, which they bought of him, turns out to be a barefaced humbug. Friend died some time ago, and it has been discovered that instead of refilling the sugar he “salted” it with sugar already refined. The stock of the company has fallen from S3OO to S4O.

The immense six-story brick building of the Richardson drug company at St. Louis was destroyed by fire early in the morning of the 13th. The entire six stories were filled with combustible goods, and there was much excitement and many narrow, escapes. Every few minutes a terrible explosion would occur throughout the building, and a graceful curl of fire would leap high into the air. It was one of the largest and finest drug houses in the country. The total lossis.about $875,000, nearly all of which is covered by insurance. One of the biggest companies ever organised under the laws of New Jersey was incorporated on the sth. It is to be known as the Edison General Electric Company. The capital stock is to be $12,000,000, of which $1,000,000 has been paid in. The stock Undivided into 120,000 shares at SIOO each. The works are to be in West Orange, N. J., with branch offices in all the leading cities. The advisability of uniting the Edison manufacturing" companies has long been considered, and this seems to be the consummation of the scheme.

In his message to the Missouri Legislature on the 4th Governor Moorehouse strongly recommended the Australian system of voting. Governor Ames recommended to the Massachusetts Legislature the early submission to the people of a prohibition amendment to the constitution. Governor" Luce, in his message to the Michigan Legislature, recommends the passage of a local option temperance law that is free from constitutional objections, governor Thayer, of Nebraska, recommended the passage of a strict registry law. , The mystery as to the real name of Murchinson, the now famous Pomona correspondent of Lord Sackville, was cleared away Monday and the announcement was made on authority of those who have been in the secret from the first that George Osgoodby, of Pomona, was the author of the Murchison letter. Mr. Osgoodby is a native of New York; is thirty-four years of jage; his father is an Englishmen by birth and resides in Pomona, as does his brother. Murchison is the family name and is attached to that of Osgoodby by marriage.

The Fidelity Bank, Cincinnati, failed June 20, 1887, owing to the investment of its funds in a stupendous Chicago wheat deal. Harper and Hopkins, the cashiers, were sentenced to the penitentiary for ten and eight years respectively, and Theophilus Baldwin, a director, committed suicide. Hopkins was taken to the penitentiary in April, 1888, a very sick man. December 20 he was pardoned by the President on account of representations that he could not live long. The papers reached Columbus Jan. 4. and the ex-convict was taken to his home in Cincinnati, where he died on the morning of the 7th. John Williams, of Pottstown, Pa., has been losing all his money, lately, by gambling. Tuesday, his plucky wife walked into the gambling house where he was playing and demanded all he had lost. She emphasized her demand by producing a revolver, when the gamblers remonstrated, but all in vain. She was inexorable, and declared that she would have the entire gang arrested unless they did as she demanded. Seeing that she meant business, the gamblers chipped in and handed her the amount John said they had won from him, after which the two—husband and wife—left the room, entered their carriage and drove away. - !

The body of the daughter of F. B. Goddard was cremated at Buffalo, N. Y. Mr. Goddard himself acted as minister. The girl’s body was prepared in the usual way, placed on the funeral car and wheeled on the track into the chapel. Mr. Goddard read a chapter from the Bible, prayed and repeated part of the Episcopal burial service before the body was consigned to the furnace. As the flames embraced the alum-soaked covering of his daughter, the old man cried with emotion: ’‘The clouds of heaven receive her precious dust, and not the worms of the grave.”. Afterward, when he had received his’ daughter’s ashes, he said: “I will consign them to the clouds, in accordance with her dying wish.”

A peculiar accident occurred in New Orleans on the fourth. Noah Stropp, a 13-year-old white boy, and his sister were playing together. Securing an old musket, "which had not been fired for twenty-seven years, he unscrewed the barrel from the stock, filled the barrel with water and placed the muzzle end in the fire of the stove. Calling his lit tie sister to “come and hear the water in tne barrel boil,” he leaned over and placed hisear tothebreach of the weapon. As he did so ths expolsion occurred and the boy was instantly killed, being blown several feet away and having hjs head nearly carried off. The barrel of the musket contained a charge which had been placed in it during the war. The bov was aware of this and was merely in search of fun. Charles De La Graza and Jesus Barbo, of Anagua, Tex., between whom' baa blood had existed for some time, met Tuesday. They immediately opened fire on each other from horseback, but dismounting after a few shots, advanced on foot firing at each other. Graza first used a Winchester, and afterward a pistol. Graza was shot through the back, receiving also a shot in the stomach, Barbo was shot through both thighs, one finger was blown off, And he was shot in the body above ihe heart. Graza was dead when witnesses got there, but Barbo lived for an hour. The men had fallen within six feet of each other Barbo had a brother who witness* d the shooting, and in trying to prevent the trouble had his horse wounded. The trouble originated over a woman.

A letter from the Rev.< C. W. Riches of Park river, D. T., conveys the first authentic information of extreme suffering among Norwegian settlers in the western part of Walsh county; Men with relief report that they found seventy families in about as destitute circumstances as it is possible for hitman beings to be in and still exist. Many

were found with barely enough clothing t« cover their nakedness, and that was of the thinnest material. Shoes were almost unknown. These farmers have lived on their little capital until nothing remained. Most of them have been living on a kind of porridge made by cooking frozen green wheat* and oats — stun not fit to feed a hog. One family has not seen any, flour for ’six weeks. Nearly all were entirely out of flour. The people have been' dividing with each other their potatoes until they are gone, too. ‘ A dispatch from Macon, Ga., says: The details of a terrible fratricide in Wilcox county, in which Edward Jordan shot and killed his brother, R. L. Jordan, have been received. Mrs. Dickey, a sister of the, Jordans,’ invited her two brothers to 'spend the holiday segson with her. The young men,knowing that Wilcox county was “dry,” supplied themselves with several gallons of whisky and thus prepared to enjoy their visit. The liquor made them the center of attraction for the young men of the neighborhood. Among those who joined them in a drunken £out were James Kirvin, L. C. Dickey, William Dickey and others. After drunk the whole party started down the road to the station, firing their pistols in a promiscuous manner. R. L. Jordan got m the lead of tjie party and a bullet from the pistol held by his brother Edward went through his heart. He fell dead on the road. The whole party has been bound over to stand trial for the crime.

FOREIGN.. Mr. Gladstone visited the ruins of Pompeii, Saturday. Cochin, India, was almost totally destroyed by fire, on the sth. The loss is $1,500,000. The Pope has issued an address to the people of Ireland, expressing hia high regard for them. Lambert Tree, American Minister to Russia, presented his credentials to the Czar, on the sth. Edward Harrington, M. P. for West Kerry, and editor of the Tralle Sentinel, was sentenced, Friday, to six months’ imprisonment at hard labor for publishing reports of a suppressed branch of the National League. » J. D. Sheehan, member of Parliament from' East Kerrick, and John Finucane, Nationalist member from East Limerick, have been found guilty of influencing tenants to a policy of intimidation. The latter got four months’ imprisonment.

Cardinal Manning has prepared an exhaustive paper on the American public school system, based on the statistics of Montgomery. The Cardinal strongly favors parental, as opposed to public school control. The paper will soon be published in England and America. The Vatican has received news of terrible floods, accompanied by a great loss of life, in Manchoria. Indian advices say the cholera prevails in a virulent form at Quilon, an the Malabar coast. It is reported that 2,000 Christians have succumbed to the disease. Peasants in the vicinity of Dunfenaghy and Falcarragh, in County Donegal, have armed themselves, fortified their houses, destroyed bridges and blocked roads in readiness to resist evictions. The troops of police on duty in the region march with difficulty, and the appearance of the district is that of a country where war is going on.

Terrific storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, have ’prevailed throughout the south of France to a degree unexampled in the history of that region. Thfe rivers have flooded their banks to the destruction of a large amount of property, and landslides have interrupted traffic on many of the railroads. In many towns most of the houses are flooded and the occupants driven to the upper floors. At a meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Monday, a resolution was passed declaring tha ,the resolution which was adopted at a meeting on Dec. 19, to tho effect that all goods brought into Great Britain similar to those produced in England should pay the same proportion cf imperial and local taxation as they would have paid if manufactured in Great Britain, does not represen the views of the whole chamber, which adheres to free trade. The police attempted to evict a blacksmith named O’Donnell from his bouse in County Donegal, on the 2d, but were repulsed several times before they were successful. O’Donnell had barricaded his house, and with the aid of neighbors, who jeered the police and pelted them with stones and vegetables, made quite, a formidable defense, finally surrendering after the soldiers had been ordered to fire upon the house. Ten persons were arrested, including a priest