Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1892 — ANOTHER BIG STEAL. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER BIG STEAL.

Allegheny, Fenn., Comes to the Front in Good Style. The Account! Said to Be 8350,000 Short The Books Very Loosely Kept. R. H. Gilliford, chairman of the audit? ing committee of the Allegheny councils, Thursday reported the result of the investigation of the accounts of the city officials. The report saye the accounts of the Mayor's office, market clerk, superintendent of water works and health office have been audited and a deficiency discovered of $350,197.20. In many instances it was not possible to find any account books whatever, and in a few cases the auditors were able to find clows which enabled them to trace items which should have been .included intlu: regular i.account books, and in almost every instance It was found that the city had been defrauded. The chairman places the responsibility on the city comptroller for not keeping a closer watch on the other officials, and characterizes the disclosures as a, shameless record of dishonesty. inefficiency an d disregard of duty. The investigations so far haye resulted n the imprisonment of Mayor Wyman and market clerk HaStlngs-for embezzlement. ,

Discovery of Coffee. _* London Telegraph. Once upon a time a poor dervish living in the deserts of Arabia noticed that his flock of goats returned home every evening in a state of unaccountable hilarity. The phenomenon puzzled him immensely, and he proceeded to try to discover the cause. He watched his goats one day and found them feeding on the blossoms and berries of a small tree. The dervibh seems,, to have been of an experimental turn of mind, for he decided that the best thing he could do in order to solve the mystery was to see if the berries .would have exactly the same effect on his own spirits as on those of the lower animals. So he made a heartyineal of the fruit and leaves of the shrub, and at once all anxieties and grief disappeared from hi&”mind and he became as jocund as his own goats. The SjJtory goes on to relate how his wile and friends failed to understand reason of this remarkable elevation of spirits, and roundlv accused the dervish of being intoxicated. In order to prove his innocence of this charge the offender could only produce some leaves and berriOofthe tree which had so mticfy exhilarated him. and request his accusers to try their effect. They ’thsted and became converted, and that was how people first took to ' drinking coffee.