Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1896 — IN GENERAL [ARTICLE]

IN GENERAL

Fifteen thousand immigrants are about to leave for New York from Naples. Word has been received at the Cuban junta in New York that the American schooner Martha”, which left Key West Tuesday night, with an expedition bound for Cuba, had returned to that city without landing her cargo. The schooner was met and chased by three Spanish vessels in Cuban waters, and barely escaped being captured. While the little schooner was fleeing from the Spanish vessels several of the Cubans on hoard the Martha mutinied and threw overboard a portion of the arms and ammunition composing her cargo. Just as the men had assembled in Watson Bros.’ mill, ready to begin work Monday, a terrific boiler explosion tore the building into fragments. Two dead bodies, those of Daniel Ledtch and A. M, Cunningham, have been extricated from the ruins and It is believed others are buried beneath the debris. Jonathan Butler is probably fatally Injured, his arms being broken and legs horribly lacerated. William Watson aud Thomas Shea are both injured in the head. At present It is impossible to ascertain the full number of fatalities. The mills were the main industry of Ridgetown. The steam schooner Lakme sailed from Seattle, Wash., for Six-Mile Creek, on Cook’s Inlet, Alaska, Monday morning,’ having 235 passengers aud a large cargo of freight. Just before the hour of departure twenty men came ashore, refusing to take the trip owing to the crowded condition of the vessel, and their fares were accordingly refunded. Of those who got away four were young men who had given up good positions in Grand Rapids, Mich., to try their fortunes in the fields of the Cook's Inlet region. ■* The steamer Utopia, which sailed Saturday for Alaska, had 125 passengers.