Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1894 — MRS. SPRAGUE'S DEBTS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MRS. SPRAGUE'S DEBTS.

4 Mrs, Kate Chase Sprague, the potted daughter of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, is in great financial difficulties. Recently the family butcher brought suit forsl2 for meats furnished. This action brought down hordes of other creditors, and the result is that the personal effects of the family, including the bust of the late jurist, will be sold at auction in January to satisfy the claims of the family butcher and other creditors. “Edgewood,” the family estate, has also been advertised for sale, and it was to have gone off under the hammer. Dec. 18. Tho auctioneer had already arrived, but a conference of the lawyers resulted in postponing the sale for thirty days, in which time it is hoped Mrs. Chase may satisfy tho claims, It is said that Mrs. Sprague has lived on borrowed money for several years, and has become almost hopelessly involved.

The new President of the American Federation of Labor is a native of Ohio, He is just past forty and has been prominent in labor circles since his eighteenth year. In 1882 he was elected presid of the Ohio Miners’ Association. IL *as State Labor Commissioner under Gov. Campbell. Last spring he organized and conducted the greatest strike in the history of the country, in which upward of 150,000 miners were involved. He was instrumental in the organization of the American Federation of Labor and presided at its first meeting in Columbus, 0., in December, 1886, when he was elected president, but declined to accept.

Bret Harte, who was a miner, express messenger, schoolmaster, and editor, and always poor, before he became a literary celebrity, is regarded as one of the handsomest and best dressed authors in London nowadays. There is a vast and commendable difference in appearance between Sarony’s photograph of him in 1871 and the photograph taken last year in liondon.

JOHN M’BRIDE,