Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1890 — THE NEWS OF THE WEEK. [ARTICLE]

THE NEWS OF THE WEEK.

[ Tetk orlme & train wracking' seem* (to be a fashionable on® at present, and *• it is one that involves a danger of a peculiar kind to the, innocent public, it may occur te the Legislatures of some of the States to provide especially severe penalties for it. It would not jbe too much to punish any attempt at strain wrecking by imprisonment for life, and the successful attempt, resulting fatally to any person, by death, (If some such heroic course is not taken, it is too likely that the services of ffudge Lynch will be invoked. The prevailing fashion in French duels is very pretty and inexpensive and the distance between the combats ants is cut longer than last year. Our {English great-grandparents were ac. oustomed to settle tlieir little difficulties across a handkerchief. This proving unwholesome the distance was made ten paces, but now the gentlemen across the border are setting their bad marksmen at a range of twenty-five paces, marked off by a long-legged man, and allowing but one shot to each contestant. It is a safer thing to fight a French duel than it is to eat a French dinner.

Whkx some of us not yet of middle ago were boys the proverbial expression used in indicating extreme speed was: “He is going at 2:40.” How weak this sounds to-day, and especially in: the light of the turf accomplishments pt the season just closed! Think of iPalo Alto, of Jack, of Nelson, of St&mboul and a score of other trotters that have skimmed the mile of the Ist&ndard track far down in the teens, to say nothing of the exploits of the ••side wheelers.” The time is coming when the gentleman driver will apologize for a horse that cannot do better (than thirty, when the “forty horse” |will be in demand for delivery carts and the unfortunate animal that cannot show a gait better than three minntes will be offered to the horse railways at a bargain. We live in a fast age. Could anything be a better illustration of the way women do their work aa compared with the way men do tbairs, than to look over a village of, say, a thousand families on a Monday morning? In a thousand little kitchens a thousand women would be aeen thrusting wood into a thousand little cook stoves, heating a thousand little wash boilers, bending their backs •over a thousand little wash boards .and hanging their clothes on a thousand little clothes linos. If„by some singular revolution, the men of such a village were to undertake to do the work, their first step would be to get up a stock company, invest capital in building and machinery, so organize the work that about a half-dozen men would do the work for the whole town, receive good salaries therefor,, and jthe rest of the men would go about their own business on Monday just as on other days.

The Obermunergau play, whicn began May 26, and which has been presented at intervals Bince then, came / • to an end Nov. 2. The report that the play is to be discontinued is discredited, as the enormous receipts are too tempting to give up for what is considered a vapid sentiment The attendance at the play this year was larger than ever before, and It was, too, somewhat of a better character. English princes and American nabobs and French dukes were jostled in the crowd of German mechanics, for the play is open to all who can pay for admission, and people from all over the world come to attend it Since the opening of the play there has crowded to the remote village an enormous and sensation-6eeklng audience from the most distant parts of the earth. The origin of the play, th, last relic of the mystery dramas of the middle ages, dates back to 1633, where a pestilence fell [.upon the district, whereupon its inh ibitants vowed that at its stay they would act the play decennially. This resolve was kept and only cnee—in 1870 during the Fran co-Prussian war—was the representation discontinued* As the plnv drew the greatest multitude of sightseers that ever collected in the place, greatly to the scandal of Germany and indeed of European Christian society at large, it was thought that the authorities would prevent a repetition of it, but such is not to be the case, as the revenue derived from the visitors is too large to be thrown away. Hence the play will be presented in the year 1900 and the same or •ven a larger throng is expectod to

The hog cholera is doing great damage in Madison county, Ohio. The Farmers’ Alliance leaders Of Kan. tea have decided to establish an assessmeat Use insurance association. A collision occured on the Pennsylvania railroad near Florenoe, Pa., on the 14th. Two people were killed and eleven injured George Fisher, -Henry Wyscup and Chas. Burket were killed by an explosion of dynamite, at Custer’s stone quarry, Lima, O. Three other men were injured. It is reported that several American fire insurance companies will soon go out of business, being unable to compete with the rates offered by foreign companies. A passenger train went through a trestle near Salem, Oregon, pn tho 13th, killing four people, fatally injuring six and slightly injuring nearly a hundred others. Judge Dakfd McLean, er-President of the Savings Hank, at Savannah, Mo., was sentenced two years in the penitentiary • for defrauding his depositors out of SIOO,000; which he lost in speculation. ... A night prowler who gains access to rooms of young ladies and clips their hair off is creating consternation among Detroit's fair belles. He usually gives warning to his victims, but all efforts to capture him have been unavailing. Complete official returns elect the entire lowa Republican State ticket, including Luke, Railroad Commissioner. For Secretary of State McFarland has a plurality of 2,000, and the other Republican candidates’ pluralities range from 1,550 to 3,779 Evidence has been secured of a conspiracy between Hocking Valley Railroad employes and ticket brokers, by which the company was cheated out of thousands of dollars. Whole blocks of forged tickets and passes have been discovered.

Charles Unger, Secretary of tho Farmeta’ Alliance of Crawford county, Ohio, has been reported to the United States authorities for violations of the internal revenue law, in selling tobacco to members of the Alliance without taking out a license. A license of incorporation was issued Thursday, tt> the'BaltimoreTin-plate Company, of Chicago, to manufacture and sell tin-plates and tinware or all kinds. The capital stock is $2,000,000, and the incorporators are Max Pam, Henry H. Kennedy, and George Einstein. A. H, Smith, of the firm or Mills, Robeson & Smith, brokers, New York, is under arrest for uttering forgeries amounting to $350,000. Tho forgeries have extended over a period of six years. Smith says he used the money to reimburse customers who had invested money nt his suggestion and lost it. He will bo sent up soon. An Ottawa special says: One hundred and fifty car loads of wheat are leaving Manitoba daily, and soon the figures will runup to -03 car loads. This is the largest wheat movement yet. ilt indicates that the Manitoba farmer is collecting his earnings. Financial papers think the large wheat crops should not lead people into extravagances in the matter of wheat growing. AMandan, N. D., special says: “Settlers on the border of the Sioux reservation bring stories of alarm of the Indians, which is borne out by Joseph Buckley, who speaks their language. Buckley says every- Indian on the reservation will shortly go on the war path, and that they have got pos.ession of Custer’s rifles, which the U. .S. .army has never found. Lo.caL.hardware men have, in the last few days, sold their entire stock of amunition to the Indians. The deaf-dumb-idiot child of Bud Futts and wife, of Hillsboro, Tenn., wandered away on the 9th and was not found until the 18th, although several hundred people joined in the search. The child was found on the edge of a precipiee in a part of the country that is iufested with bears and it is a miracle it was not devoured by some beast in its four days’ wondering*. Its -footorints showed that it had Deen perilously near the edge of the precipice.

Birchall.the murderer of F. C. Benwell, was hanged at Woodstock, Canada, on the 14th. The evidence - upon which he was convicted was largely circumstantial, but conclusive. He induced Beuwell to come from England to purchase a farm. When Benwell had arrived, and while on the way to the supposed farm, Birchall murqered Behwell in a swamp. H's body was. found two days later, and arrest, conviction and hanging followed. The financial year of the cotton mills at Fall River, Mass., is closing and the great er number Jof them are now able to present their exhibit for the year. Thirty" four corporations, with a capital of 958,000, have paid $1,387,770 loss to stockholders, or an average of about 7 per cent. There are still a few mills to hear from. The above showing is fairly good, taken by itself, but it is not so flattering as that made in the previous year, when the average dividend paid was 9.73 per cent, on a capital of $15,55b,.900.

A summary of (he reports of the Secretaries of the Missionary Committee of tlie Methodist Episcopal Church shows that of ! the *1,036,309 received for missions during ; the year, *400,170 was oxpendcd in the . United States. There is a membership of ’ 16,000, and *!,0(lO,000 in property in the' missions of Germany, 7,000 members in Switzerland, 1.1,000 in Sweden, 8,090 and a property of *500,000 in Norway, and a membership of 50,000 in the great Indian missions. There is urged a larger appor> tionment for New England conferences on account of the great influx of foreign pops ulation. The reports further state that there is to be a great Chinese Methodism, rivaling that in the English speaking world. A special dispatch from Lincoln,, Neb., says: The yield of corn is much less than anticipated, the average in this part of the State being less than ten bushels to the acre, and farther west even less. Farmers have nothing t 0 feed with, and vast quantities of hogs half fattened are being rushed {p market and sacrificed at very low prices. Corn is telling on the streets for 90 to *3 oento per busheL It it impotsi-

ble to disgqise the fact that in western counties there is much destitution. Large numbers of homesteads ore heavily eni cumbered and a few have been abandoned. Women and children are suffering for food, clothing and fuel. The churches and benevolently inclined people are qnietiy organising for their relief. FOREIGN. British poachers are still at work among the seals of Behring sea. The little country of Honduras is racked with a very big revolution—for it. The President has been driven from the capital. A decisive cattle is expected to l>: fought soon. The business men of Cuba have been asked to send a committee to Madrid, to confer with the Spanish Government offl-1 cials on the question of reciprocity with the United States. The trial of the O’Shea divorce suit began in, London Saturday. Mr. Parnell re- ! fused to defend himself. The testimony was of an unsavory’ character, and went to show that the relations of the Irish leader and Mrs. O’Shea were such as should only exist between man and wife. The Brazilian congress met Saturday. The President’s message after reviewing the work of -the provisional government formally transferred the powers of the government to the chambers. A committee was appointed to prepare ah address of congratulation to the president, Beodosi Da Fonseka. The first anniversary of the proclamation of tho republic was celebrated Saturday with fetes and a review of the troops.