Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1893 — A PAN HANDLE WRECK. [ARTICLE]

A PAN HANDLE WRECK.

People who are determined to find fault can always find something to kick about, “Seats” in the New York StockExchange come high, but men will have them. The “par value” of the holdings in that body is placed at ♦20,000, and no sale has been made at less than that for many years. There a great many people in this part of the country who would have to stand up a long time before they could pay 120,000 for a “seat,” and the majority of our readers would hardly care to invest 120,000, were they so fortunate as to possess such a sum, in a “seat” in that maelstrom of the financial sea. T “Owing to the stringency of the money market” two belligerent citizens of Goshen failed to come to blows. One of the parties to the controversey stated that, although he hungered for gore, he really could not raise the money to pay the fine that he knew would be imposed upon him in case he began hostilities, so he dared “the other fellow” to “jump his frame” so that he could fight in self-defense. “The other fellow” felt that way himself, so the fight was declared ‘‘off” until the purse-strings of the world shall be relaxed.

This is an “off” year in politics. Ohio. lowa and Massachusetts elect governors. In Ohio, Gov. McKinley has been re-nominated. Gov. McKinley was elected two years ago by a plurality of 21,000 in a total vote of 81*T,000. In lowa, Gov. Boies, Democrat, has been re-nomi-He carried the State four years ago over Wheeler, Republican, by a plurality of 8,216. In 1892 the Republicans elected their State ticket by 22,000 plurality. In Massachusets two years ago Russell •was elected by the Democrats, by a plurality of 2,534. These three commonwealths casting over 1,600,000 votes will be the principal battlefields this year, and the result of their elections will be awaited with interest.

The strange decrees o: Fate have in all ages attracted the wonder of mankind. Why two babes lying side by side in a cradle, with apparently equal advantages and equal chances for success in life should live through totally different careers—and die at last, oner weal th v. honored and respected, the other an outcast, poor, miserable, depraved and shunned by all the world, presents a problem that philosophers have never been able to solve. A striking illustration of this very common truth is afforded by two brothers of the Hoosier capital. One is the proprietor of a hotel, and his brother, who had equal chances for success, is his bartender.

People of a statistical turn of mind will be interested with the information that there is a Welsh population of 10,000 in Chicago, and that, there are as many Welshmen in the United States as there are in Wales. The Welsh are generally progressive and are good citizens. The majority of the Welsh in Chicago are identified with some Protestant denomination, the most of these being Presbyterians. There will be 50,000 Welshmen in attendance at the Eisteddfod (whatever that is) to be held at Chicago in September, and the the reporters of that city are already looking around for interpreters. • They have not been able to master the jaw-breaking qualities of the language, and when the Welsh begin to talk of discussing billingualism in the language of Cymry at the coming Eisteddfod, black despair throttles their imagination, and they long for a commission to write up a lake-front riot. Welshmen are very,proud of William Williams, their countryman, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. A Des if oinks man, and his name is Dawson, claims to have discovered the lost art of making Damascus steel. Modern science has long -struggled tvith the problem of producing blades similar to those made try the ancient Asiatic races. By Mr. Dawson’s “process’’ they are now readily made, and it is alleged at half the cost of old methods. The “process” is simple but will not be patented. The new steel is made from common refined wrought iron, fused in a crucible, to which is added certain chemicals, that ate the secret of the discovery. The metal is not rolled, but is poured, or cast, into moulds of sword blades, knife Wadep, or whatever article is desired. Mr. Dawson’s blades can be <J)COt double and will sorincr back to

their original straightness; they will cut a feather pillow or a bar of iron or steel; and yet analysis shows nothing but wrought iron. A vast amount of adverse criticism and sneering censnre has been indulged in with reference to Indiana's State Building at Jackson Park. The Legislature has been roundly abused and the building itself condemned in unmeasured terms as being totally unfit as a representation of the wealth and enterprise of the great Hoosier State. Afc arnatter of fact the building is typical of Indiana in its homelike attractions and lack of ostentation, as well as for the fact that the commissioners having it in charge have administered their trust in a manner worthy of all praise, in that the building has been erected and all expenses paid, while the appropriation will not be exhausted. While the building and Indiana’s exhibit at the Fair are not up to the standard of some other States, yet no citizen of the Hoosier commonwealth need blush for his State because of a supposed failure on the part of those in authority to make a proper use of their opportunities. Indiana’s building is “all right,” and is a daily haven of rest for thousands of weary pilgrims who seek its sheltering walls with grateful hearts to those who have provided a place so “home like” for their benefit.

Indiana, has many laws that are ignored and are practically a dead letter. Notably the statutes forbidding prize fighting and for the protection of wild game. Pugilists can batter each other with impunity without endangering the perpetuity of the human race. The harm they do is confined largely to their own persons and to the morals of spectators, with probably a reflex action upon the community at large that is the reverse of beneficial- But transgressors of our game laws are not only offenders against the code of our day and despoilers of the present generation, but their acts, if unchecked, will rob posterity of a heritage to which it is entitled, and one which no human power can, or is likely to endeavor to restore to it. Illegal shipping of game is constantly carried on from various points in the Kankakee district, and it is slated on good authority that a market hunter at Ivouts, Porter county, has a cold storage warehouse, shoots all the game he can in his vicinity as soon as it is large enough to sell, and has constantly on hand a supply of almost all kinds of small game. It is known that he shipped eight barrels of prairie chickens in one week to Chicago last, year out of season. Our hunters who delight in sport owe it to themselves and to posterity to organize a Game Protective Association that will deal firmly and harshly with all such offenders, before it is too late. The Kankakee region is likely to remain a natural hunting ground, probably for all time, and it is the common right of ail citizens to enjoy its treasures. No one should be permitted to monopolize them in defiance of law.

The man who is “too poor to take the papers” continues to bite at hooks without bait, and is taken in by the boldest and most transparent schemes for catching gudgeons. With the rapid spread of intelligence and the vast number of hapless victims of the past who have contributed their dollars to the exchequer of the most unconscionable scoundrels. and their dearly bought experience as a free will offering to the sura of human knowledge, it does seem the strangest "of all strange things in this world of unexpected happenings, that people—honest and industrious citizens —will continue to follow in the verdant footsteps of their unfledged predecessors, whose memory is ever “green” iu almost every community in the land. The country press from time to time has brought us details of the most laughable success of sundry fakirs who have successfully “worked” the rurai population by means of beuevolent schemes wherein they propose giving to every purchaser of a twentyfive cent watch chain or bottle of liniment, sums ranging from a silver dollar to a S2O gold piece,leaving their victims loaded down with bogus jewelry and bottles of sweetened water. But the most successful swindler of this class recently is one Dunbar, of Washington City, who has been catering to the vanity and absorbing SIG each from a number of Hoosier Knights Templar and politicians of prominence, promising that he would publish sketches and portraits of his victims in a book about to be issued. Washington • dispatches of August 29th state that Dunbar has at last come to grief on a charge of using the mails for fraudulent purposes, and has given a bond of 12,000 to appear in court in. October to answer to the same. ~

Appalling Calamity Near Colehour, Illinois. ; Tb* Accident Dae to n Train'Dispatcher’! Error—Twelve Killed Outright, An accident, which cannot be termed excusable even by railway officials, occurred near Colehour, 111., fourteen miles from Chicago, Thursday. The Louisyille express on the Pan Handle left Chicago, Thursday morning, in charge ot Conductor Earley. At Colehour it stopped for orders, and in accordance with those received started on over the single track. Train Dispatcher C. E. Kennedy at Colehour had before its arrival received the following dispatch from the train dispatcher’s office at Ft. Wayne: ‘No. ICO will wait at Colehour until eight-.forty-five (8:45) a. m. for No. 49 ahead of time. C. D. L.” There was no order for train No. 12 and Kennedy made no effort to stop it. In the meantime the Valparaiso accommodation carrying milk and chickens, with a limited number of passengers, was approaching from the south at high speed, considerably ahead of time, the crew trying to pass Colehour to avoid keeping train No. 160 waiting too long. The track west from Colehour describes a curve and is lost sight of behind a clump of trees. The express had reached a point about 100 yards from the curve.when suddenly from behind the trees there burst in view the accommation train. Not two hundred yards separated them when the crew of each engine sighted the other train, and as quickly as possible the levers of both engines were reversed and the air brakes applied. The efforts of the men did not seem for an instant to check the terrible speed and the crew of each engine jumped to save themselves, and an instant later the locomotives struck with a crash. The engine of the accommodation being of lighter construction than the other, crumbled away like paper and fell into the ditch. The tender was forced back and under the first baggage car. The heavy express engine stood pn the track, but the baggage car was forced up and through the smoking car. Then as the propelling force ceased, the heavy baggage car crashed through the roof of the smoker. Twelve persons were killed and at least twice as many seriously injured. The scene of the accident is in a thinly settled section and it was fully an hour before aid arrived from South Chicago. The dead and wounded were pinned in the wreck and the scene was horrible and agonizing in the extreme. The crews of both engines were arrested and will bo held until after the coroner's inquest.