Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — NEWSLETS [ARTICLE]

NEWSLETS

'lt is thought that Congress will not adjourn until about the first’ of July. IT is said that valuable silver mines have been discovered in Northern Wisconsin. FORTY thousand iron workers are on a strike at Pittsburg, Pa., wasting one hundred thousand dollars a day. HEAVY frosts about the 6th and 7th inst., damaged the growing crops in the Northwestern and New England States very seriously. THE enormous cost of the war in Afghanistan is shown in the loss of forty thousand camels, belonging to the British transport service. The Indian Bureau at Washington has received information that Sitting Bull is on the American side of the boundary line, with 800 lodges of his people. WASHINGTON gossip says that many Congressmen spend their time playing poker, and that several big games have recently occurred at one of the principle hotels. LATER development in the Vermont poisoned-brook horror, show that the children died of diplftheria, superinduced by the pools of stagnant water under and about the school house. The World’s Fair for 1893 is to be held in New York city. This has been definitely settled by the recent organized action of some of the leading men of wealth and enterprise of that city.

AN excursion train on a narrow | gauge railroad in Utah, was blown | from the track the other day. A brakeman was killed and the conductor slightly wounded, but none of the passengers were hurt. THE average salary of Methodist ministers in fourteen Southern conferences is said to be $572, and the average amount paid $438. In Northern conferences the average is $7OO, and the deficiency in payments about 12 per cent. THERE is a prospect that the European silk crop will be a failure, and that large supplies of the article will have to be drawn from China and Japan. In this event, there will be an increased demand for silver, and the price of it is stiffening. The condition of British troops in South Africa is most discouraging. The least move entails enormous expense; the mortality is frightful, and as now situated but little defense could be made against the Zulus should they open an attack. THE trades unions of the various, cities of this country have definitely decided to devote the next Fourth of July to a grand demonstration for the eight-hour-a-day movement. The report that there is to be a general labor strike at that time or any other time this Summer is denied. It is said C. W. Field has made $4,000 000, and Samuel Tilden is said to have made $2,000,000 on the elevated railroads in New York city. The two roads have combined in a new company, and the big stockholders are charged with swallowing up the little ones. LORD FALMOUTH, , the most successful turfman of Europe l , has one three-year-old filly, the Wheel of Fortune, that has already won for him $79,450 in stakes alone. Mr. Falmouth never

bets, he simply takes the stake, and in this way secured in 1878. $200,000: in 1877, $175,000, and the indications are that 1879 will be a good year for stakes. As Mrs. Honora Lacy was driving from Wilmington, Delaware, to her home in Chester county, Pennsylvania, the other-day, the contents of the carriage—cotton and straw—were ignited by a match, and instantly the whole interior of the vehicle was in a blaze. The horse was frightened and ran was and before it was stopped Mrs. Lacy was literally roasted alive. THE new y elected Judge of the Court of Appeals in Kentucky is charged with grave offenses, and the bar are calling upon him to purge himse f. He has not yet taken his seat, or answered the charges. THE bold scoundrels who robbed a messenger of the Illinois Central Railway of a package of nearly SI0,000, on a public street in Chicago, on Saturday afternoon, while he was en route from the railway office to a bank, have been arrested, and a portion of the money recovered. There are three of them, and they are well-known professional thieves. THE number of persons who arrived at the port of New York from foreign countries during May was 21,567, of whom 18,100 were classed as immigrants. During the corresponding period of 1878 the total number of passengers arrived at the port was 15,271, of whom 12,213 were immigrants. During the year ending May 31, 1879, the arrivals were as follows: Immigrants, 92,801; other passengers, 42,378. During the previous year, 71,091 immigrants and 30,355 other passengers. The increase is noteworthy. A State convention of the colored

people is to be held at Terre Haute, on the 6th of August, the purpose of which will be to perfect arrangements for securing to the colored citizens of Indiana better recognition in the paneling of juries and selections of county, township and municipal officers, and to cause several old-time barbarons laws now upon the State statutes to be eliminated, especially in the marriage code. Another important subject to be discussed will be to devise some method to induce colonies of the colored people, now fleeing from the South, to locate in this State. AT Portsmouth, Va., quite recently, the Mayor caused the arrest of nine colored men and women, at the instigation of several of their white neighbors, and preferred charges of larceny against them. In punishment for this alleged crime the Mayor ordered each one of the accused to receive thirtynine lashes at the whipping-post, and the sentence was carried out. . ‘

CASHMERE, where the famine is prevailing so severely, is one of the northern native Indian States, indirectly under British rule, the Maharajan being required to furnish a contingent troops when called upon by the Viceroy of India. The Indian government has organized relief measures, as in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies during the last few years of famine, where $40,000,000 were expended on public works, designed to give the natives employment. Cashmere has an area of 79,784 square miles, and a population of 1,600,000. The cholera is prevailing there and in Northern India generally, and the suffering will doubtless be very great.

SUIT has been commenced in the Owen Circuit Court by Judge John C. Robinson and wife, against the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railway Company, to enjoin the said company from sounding its locomotive whistles, according to the new statute, alleging that the same is a nuisance to the plaintiffs and the property-holders of the town of Spencer. The chief question is one of constitutional law—whether or not the Legislature has the power to require of a corporation the performance of an act in the transaction of its business which is not necessary to the public safety, to the damage of the public in general, or in, other words, has it the power to enact a law the enforcement of which creates a public nuisance?

THE Iowa Supreme Court has decided that the innocent giver of a promissory note to a lightning-rod man, a patentright agent, or other traveling swindler, such not having afterwards-been raised to a larger amount by such swindler, is note liable for more than the amount of the original and bona tide contract. This reverses the ruling of the district courts of that State, and has the effect of protecting many farmers and others who have of late years been victimized by sharpers, who have taken their notes for small amounts, which, by filling blanks, were fraudulently increased to larger sums and disposed of to local banks. The Supreme Court has done a simple act of justice by thus stepping in between the swindlers and their victims.

More than $1,000,000 is now being spent in Peoria, Ill., in the erection of manufacturing establishments, and upwards of another million in building business blocks and private residences. THE question of whether the government can release United States legaltender notes in time of peace will soon be decided in the United States Supreme Court. The present test case is founded on a genuine transaction between Mr. J. B. Chittenden and Gen. Butler. The plaintiff in this test case refused to receive certain United States notes which had been redeemed subsequent to Jan. 1,1879, and reissued and kept in circulation, under, and in persuance of, the act of Congress entitled “An act to forbid the further retirement of United States legal-tender notes.” Judge Blatchford, of New York, gave judgment Saturday for the defendant, and dismissed the complaint. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court. The-decision will be of great interest and importance.

A Paris correspondent says that thus far the shipments of live meat to France have been in comparison to those of England, rather limited, but with the hostile prejudice .existing against America on the tariff question done away, with this trade would be come hardly second to the prepared meat importations. Even as it is, it is constantly increasing. Up to this time the French meat has been carried from New York by French steamers, but owing to the fact that but part of the vessel can be devoted to shipment, as unusual appliances are necesry for the transportation, the conveniences for shipment have been very limited. The meat, however, has given great satisfaction, the French giving it a preference over all the others except English mutton. Since the beginning of the trade, in November, 1867, Paris has consumed 5,000.000 pounds of imported American meat. The importation of meats, fresh and salted, reached 30,000,000 francs in 1877 and 52,000,000 francs in 1878. The total values of food imported into France during the three last months of the years were 533,000,00 of francs' worth in 1875, 671,000,000 worth in 1876, 727, 000,000 worth in 1877, and in 1878, 1,049,000,000 worth. In beasts on the hoof imported during the last three months of the year: 75,000,000 francs’ worth in 1875, 107,000.000 worth in 1876, 131,000,000 worth in 1877 and 188,000,000 worth In 1878. The average yearly importation of salted meat into France from 186 T to to 1876 was 6,507,278 francs. The average importation between 1857 and 1866 was 1,470,575 francs, and between 1847 and 1856 it was 2,622,430 franes. One of the stones f >rming the steps .of the new court house at a Grange weighs 11,000 pounds.