Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1892 — INDIANA STATE NEWS. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

Laporte reports a heavy snowfall. Leavenworth is enforcing the liquor law. The New Ross Fair is to be held no more. Lawrenceburg is threatened with a famine. Shelbyville is tackling the spelling school as an amusement. Greencastle's city council has enacted an anti-screen ordinance. Teachers, it is claimed want the old township libraries revived. Martinsville’s retail grocers have combined in a collection association. The Waterloo schools have closed for ten days because of scarlet fever. Redkey has doubled its population in a year. It now has three glass factories. A franchise has been secured to operate an electric street railway at Alexandria. A good quantity of anthracite coal is said to have been discovered at Atlanta Ind. The recent canvas of Anderson for a new city directory gives a population of 18,000. Joseph Green, of Anderson, tripped and fell, dislocating his nock. At this writing he is still alive. While two little boys were skating near Ft. Wayne they found tho body of a dead baby frozen in the ice. The oil line running from the Notting ham, Ind., oil fields to Preble, there con* necting with the Lima and Chicago pipe line, sprang a leak Wednesday night. Several thousand barrels were lost. William Vest, of Hindoostan. brings word to Martinsville that the cemetary at Stinesville, in Monroe county, was visited by vandals and the monuments of dead soldiers were beaten down with an ax. 6 Edward Boyer, of South Bend, while attempting to control a team of fractious colts, was thrown down a thirty foot embankment into the St. Joe river and was drowned. He was twenty-five years old. Wm. H. Smythe, Grand Secretary of the Masons of Indiana, was seriously injured at Indianapolis Thanksgiving night by being thrown from an electric car, which he was endeavoring to board. IHis injuries will not prove fatal, it is believed.

Mrs, Walter O’Neal, of Morgan county, accused of a theft of S2O, which she acknowledged, committed- suicido on the 2.5 th, by taking “Rough on Rats,” She was a bride of b it eight months, and lie 1 * iomesMc relations are said to have contributed to the crime of suicide. Walter McWilliams, a teacher, of Kendallville, had a small bell sitting on his desk which began ringing, and it continued to ring until it was removed to some other part of the house. McWilliams could not trace the cause, and therefore settled to the belief that the ringing foretells the downfall of this Nation. 6 Martin Goss, foreman at the Jeffersonville car works, received a letter warning him to leave the city on pain of death, on account of his activity during the cam. paign. Thursday Mr. Goss and Jeff Davis, night watchmen at the same place, came near having a shooting match over the matter. Lavis was accused of writing the letter, Miss Kate Burher, of Fr. Wayne, accompanied a family to California as a domestic, and there she died. Her mother still living in Ft. Wayne mortgaged her little home for $300 and ordered the body shipped back for burial. En route it was lost, and at last accounts there was no trace. The railway company is endeavoring to find it. “Honest Dave” Humphry, the second hand dealer of Logansport, who shot and killed Joseph Stephenson, has been arrested for murder. Bail in $50.000 was refused. The defendant claims that Stevenson was mistaken for a burglar trying to break into his store, but later developments indicate that there was a woman in the case, and that jealousy incited the shot.

Wednesday night about 8 o’clock, as Miss Libby Miller, of Elkhart, and Miss Josie Franklin, of Middleton, were driving into the city, they were met by the fast express on the Lake Shore railway at a suburban crossing. After tho train passed the drove on the track just in time to meet a passenger train going in an opposite direction. Miss Miller was instantly killed, and Miss Franklin died within an hour. A new swindling scheme has come to light at Sharpsville. A clever young mail came into town on a bicycle, representing himself as tho agent of a company. Ho sold his wheal at a reduced price in order to advertise them, lie said, taking a casli payment and tho rest on monthly payments without notes. In a day or two another party showed up on the trail of a thief who had stolen his bicycle: proved liis properly and departed, leaving the purchaser holding the sack. A fatal freight wreck occurred on the j Indianapolis division of tho Pan Handle at Harvey’s Station, near Richmond, on j tho rooming of the 24th. One freight train ■ TlTHPheeii cut in two to ascctid Ibrr grade- j the second half being allowed to stand on j the main track. Tho first half was pulled into a switch, and another train going in another direction bolievlng tho track to be clear, it being said, and started down the grade at considerable speed, plunging into the cars that were on the main track A frightful wreck was tho result. One of tho trainmen was instantly killed, another fatally, and u third badly injured. Several weeks ago J. F. Moore went to Summitville as the agent of tho Interstate Building and Loan Association, of Toledo 0., and he soon enlisted 107 stock charging $1 and negotiating loans aggre* gating several thousanddollars. Altogether he realized about S2OO. Among the subscribers was Jacob Abrams, who took f2,5C0 in stock and uppllod for a two-tliou_ sand-dollur loan. Not being served to his liking, he slipped over to Toledo, where ho was unable to find the so-caliod Interstate Savings and Loan Association. YVhcu he returned home Moore was gone. A complaint was then filed, alleging false pretenses, and a warrant was issued for Moore's arrest. Mrs Russell Maskin, a very estimable lady of Anderson, was burned to a crisp Friday, and she is now lying at her home

at the point of death. While standing near a gas stove her dress caught fire, and was ablaze before she detected it. The flames enveloped the woman who, frightened and frantic with pain, ran screaming into the yard. Her cries brought assistance, but the flames were not smothered till the victim was burned almost to a crisp from head to foot. It is the opinion that she will not survive. Mrs. Maskin was young, beautiful, and has been married but a short time. The event has created profound sorrow among her friends. . An amusing incident occurred at the Wallace circus winter quarters near Peru on the 25th. Dr. Sayre, of Wabash, and Grant Wilson, of Peru, visitors, were watching keeper Sweeney, of the animal department, do the feeding. One of the large leopards, through hunger, managed to escape from his cage and came for the three men. Sweeney escaped through the door, but Sayre and Wilson sought refuge and escaped by locking themselves in one of the vacant cages. Sweeney, with reinforcements, finally subdued the beast, but not until a pet dog had been killed and desperate force used in the nature of hot irons and pitchforks. A bold attempt was made Monday night to rob and murder James Coombs, a rich lumber dealer of Carbon, Clay county. He was on his way from Carbon to Bridgeton to pay off the men in his employ, and he had several thousand dollars about his person. At a lonely spot two masked men sprang from the woods. One grasped the bridle of the horse while the other drew a revolver, and springing behind Coombs, discharged the weapon, tho bullet entering Coombs’ back. The shot frightened the horse, which sprang forward, throwing the robber to one side, and the animal ran down the road. Both men began firing at Coobms, but no other bullet struck him. The injured man reached Bridgeton and spread the report. An armed posse immediately started in pursuit, taking a rope with them, but did not capture the highwaymen. Coombs’ injuries are serious and may result fatally.

An unusual criminal case has come to an ending in Logansport, a jury finding Mrs. Mary Heenan guilty of embezzlement and sentencing her to one year's imprisonment in tihe Female Reformatory. Miss Mary Remley, sixty-three years old, held $4,800 in cash and a home valued at $2,000. She resided in the country until after her father’s death, when she built a home at Logansport. Trouble with relatives made her suspicions, and she retained in her personal keeping whatever money she possessed. Mrs. Heenan was a neighbor, who often alluded to a wonderful fortuneteller, and, Miss Remley consenting to see her, a woman disguised as a gypsy called one evening and volunteered to tell her fortune, The pretended gypsy then gave Miss Remley a discription of the man she would marry, which answered exactly to a physician at Logansport, to whom Miss Remley was deeply attached. Miss Remley paid $l0 for this first visit, and did it gratefully. Freqently visits were afterwards made by the same Gypsy, of whom it might here be said was none other than Mrs. Heenan. Once the Gypsy told her that the Doctor (Blackburn by name) was sick and needed $400 to lift a mortgage on his property; further, that if Miss Remley failed to advance it another woman stood ready to do so. With each succeeding visit the credulous woman paid over money to the pretended Gypsy, the amount ranging from fifty to one hundred dollars, at at one time $600 was secured in one lump. Eventually al| her ready cash was exhausted and then Miss Remley was persuaded to mortgage her little home for $950, and she followed this by giving a deed to her property to Mrs. Heenan. After this she was told the Gypsy was dead. Miss Remley then consulted a lawyer and it resulted in the criminal prosecution of Mrs. Heenan. As part of the consideration of the deed Miss Remley was given permission to live there during her natural life. The defense set up that the money paid to Mrs. Heenan was in return for loans made to Miss Remley and that she had no connection with the pretended Gypsy woman. The trial lasted a week.