Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1891 — INDIANA STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

Brazil claims 8,500 population. Ft. Wayne wants drihldn'g fountains. The Huntingburg bank closed Its doors. Montgomery county reports 11,777 school children.; The coal miners’ strike at Washington has ended. Thg Terre Haute tinners have organized a union. Cholera is ravaging Jackson township, Hamilton county. » Ed Thompson has been appointed postmaster at Indianapolis. George Logan killed John Fortune during a quarrel at Shelbyville. Hog cholera is raging to an alarming oxtentin parts of Morgan county. Work has commenced,on the new electric light plant at Crawfordsville. Ex-Congressman Owen has been appointed immigration commissioner. The first order book of the Clark Circuit Court bears the date of June 9,1817. Fairland has been successful in preventing the issuance of licenses to retail liquor in that place. : zNoblesville has accepted the proposition of a local company to put in a waterworks plant. The appointm.ent of Dr. Navin.of Rushville, as a Government meat inspector at Hammond, has been revoked. * • • ••

The five-year-old daughter of Jefferson Reed, of Tipton, was kicked by a cow, breaking her leg in three places. John L. Woodward, living near Plymouth, committed suicide with morphine. He was aged sixty-fanr and tired of Tife. D One hundred men quit work at the Mnncie glass works because one of theii number had been irregularly discharged. Christopher WeigTer, of Daviess county, a wealthy farmer, committed suicide by blowing out his brains. No cause assigned,, Amoug the floral decorations on the graves at Crawfordsville on Decoration Day, was one bearing the card “From the Gray to the Bine.” The strike among the coal miners at ■Washington has ended, and 500 miners will return to work on the same scale of wages in vogue last year.

Mrs. Nice, the evangelist, has closed her meetings, xvhich have been in progress for several weeks at Fillmore, and which Resulted in sixty conversions. Will Davis, a Jeffersonville telegraph operator, received notification Tuesday that he had been left $30,000 by an aunt who has just died in Pennsylvania. Miss Anna Davidson, of Crawfordsville, has a dynamite bomb that was made by Louis Linng, the Chicago Anarchist Avho blew his head off the day before he was to have been hanged.

Michael Slevin had a fainting spell and fell.by the roadside, on the Salem pike, where he lay for three days unable to move or cry out, until farmer noticed him and helped him to Jeffersonville. Eleazer Coffeen, of Muncie, aged ninetytwo, is dead of injuries recived by contact with a moving train. The deceased was a New Yorker by birth in October, 1799, and in 1859 he entered a section of land where a part of. Muncie now stands. Many years ago Mr, Coffeen disposed of this land to Adam Wolfe, who realised much of his fortune by the natural advance in price, while the original owner failed to prosper financially. However his needs were looked after by Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Coffeen was the old est man in Delaware county, and the first grocer in Muncie, beginning business in 1831. Seven children survive him. Fife men were killed by the explosion of a boiler in Dusard Brothers’ saw mill, Fayetteville, on the 3d. The two now dead, named Evans and Kern, wereffilown through the building and landed a distance away in a frightfully mangled state. They lingered an hour before death relieved them from their sufferings. The remaining three, scalded and fearfully maimed were dug out of the ruins. They are still alive but cannot survive. A green engineer had been employed that morning, and the catastrophe is said to be the result of his The explosion occurred thirty minutes after he took charge of the. engine. The financial loss has not been determined.

The blue-ribbon temperance movement in Lebanon is widening and deepening its influence, and it soon will be as unfashionable to appear without the ribbon as it formerly was fashionable to take a drink. The city Council has increased the price of city liquor licenses to the full limit--8250. One saloon has closed its doors, and the proprietor of another drinkery is contemplating a similar move. The amount of beer formerly shipped here has been reduced one-half. Twenty-five hundred persons have taken the pledge of total abstinence. Such a tidal wave of any description was never known to sweep over Lebanon before.

INDIANA COAL FIELDS. A special bulletin has just been issued at the Census Office on the coal product of Indiana, Illinois! Ohio and Michigan, from which the correspondent takes the following on “Coal Product of Indiana:” What is known as the central or Illinois coal field extends eastward over the southwestern portion of Indiana, underlying an area of about 7,000 square miles, and includes nineteen counties Warren county lying at the northern limit, and a line drawn through the eastern boundary of Greene county marking its extent eastward. The general character of the coals of this State, like those of Illinois and western Kentucky, which comprise the remaining portion of the fields are, of course, bituminous, and excellent for steam and heating purposes; but of little value for the manufacture of coke and gas. Caijnel coal, which appear, in pockets in various portions of the Indiana regions, has not attained more than local Importance, eithe r for domestic fuel or for the manufacture of gas. “There being no authorized system of collecting the statistics of production of coal iu this State, the figures published heretofore from year to year must be taken as approximates to some extent. The State Mine Inspector, in the course of his duties, has secured whatever data was available on the subject, and hfs estimates may be relied upon as representing very nearly the actual facts. Assuming theso figures to be correct, will find that the pro-

duction of coal in the State has declined since 1887, the year of maximum output This condition is owing to the Introduction of natural gas In the cities and larger towns, together with the use of erode oil as fuel at Chicago and elsewhere,. thereby displacing the Indiana coals in many important near-by markets. The production as reported by the Mine Inspector was as follows for the years named: 1887, 3,217.711 short tons; 1888, 3,140,979 short tons. The product for the year 1889 as reported to the census was .2,845,057 short tons, valued at $2,887,852, an average of $1.02 per ton at the mines. During the year ending June 30,1880, the quantity of coa l produced in the State, as reported to the tenth census, 1,454,327 short tons, valued at $2,150,258, an average of $1.48 per ton a the mines.”

SCHOOL BOOKS ADOPTED. The State Board of Text-book Commissioners at Indianapolis last week awarded contracts for books under the supplemental law as follows: Indiana School Book Company—“ Spelling Book,” Indiana State series, 10 cents; “Advanced Lessons in English Grammar,” Indiana State series, 40 cents; “Advanced Lessons in Human Physiology,” Indiana State series, 60 cents; “Elementary Lessons in Human Physiology,” Indiana State series, 50 cents. „_Hinn & Co., Boston “Montgomery s History of the United States,” 65 cents, “Elementary Lessons in English,” 25 cents. The supplementary law requires the trustees to make requisitions for books on the first Monday in June. As the contracts were not awarded at that time, the requirement could not te obeyed, but it will be the duty of the trustees to make their requisitions as soon as the Governor’s proclamation announcing the awards is issued, which will probably be within a week, as the contracts will be executed at once. The Board of School-book Commissioners gave a great deal of time and labor to the selection of the books. The final awards were all made ijy unanimous votes,