Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1873 — General News Summary. [ARTICLE]

General News Summary.

CONGRESSIONAL. In the Senate, on the 18th, a bill was reported and debated for the relief of rettfere on Cherokee lands.... The hill authorising the East Cheater National Bank, of Mount Vernon, Indiana, to change ite location and name, was passed...’ Bills were introduced and referred—to secure a >norc efficient and honest administration of Indian atlairs; authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to Oreek the cessJon ffarrett Davis, laVe n s?ev^- aa< V^°« ioß nun “nmner Ba?. J i Vickers, Cameron, Thtnc stomari resol,J / 4 1111,1 Triimb.ill, when the customary resolu.aon. werc adopted... .AdjournInthe House, on the 18th, bills were pasße -Authorizing the Comptroller of the Curexamine the condition of the savings in the District of Columbia; concerning a <</it?)mvnt with the States of Ohio, Indiana and Rllrwns of the 2 per cent, of land claims, under the iagLftf March 1857—403 to 52... .The Deficiency was further considered in Committee of the delivered on tiie late Senator Davis, of Kentucky..., Adjourned. Tn the Senate, on the 19th, the House bill, amendatory to the postal code, with amendments, was reported and passed; the amendments change the rate of postage on seeds, authorized to be transmitted, from two omits for four ounces to odc cent for every two ounces or fraction of two ounces. and provide that all mail ipatter of the third cla**s must be fully prepaid.. .-•.Bills-weroTe-jported--Postal Telegraph bill v by the provision s »nf which the Postmaster-General is required, as ♦soon as practicable, to estahjish •-telegraph- offices -at aU Post-Offices on telegraph circuits, at others 'within ten mites thereof where the salary is at least S3OO per annum, and other places xvhbre the wants of business require "it, and fixing the rates of charges for the transmission of messages; substitute for the bill prohibiting the sale of liquor in the District of Columbia and other Territories.... Bills were reported adversely—allowing women in the Territories to vote and hold office; relating to judgments in the Provisional Courts of Louisiana . The bill authorizing an exchange of registered coupon bonds was called up, and an amendment was agreed to, providing t'aat the operation of the law shall not increasq «he public debt or rate of interest on the bonds* when the bill was debated and laid over. • • French Spoliation bill was f nrther discussed... . .Adjourned. In the House, on the 19th, bills were qwsed— for paying the expenses of the Mexican ‘Commission; the Deficiency Appropriation bill; appropriating SIOO,OOO toward the representation of the United States in the Vienna Exposition in 1873. and providing for the appointment of a Commission of not more than twelve skilled citizens to attend the Exposition and report their observations to the President; Senate bill authorizing the East Chester National Bank, Mount Vernon, Ind., • v —-Vbang? t u , . .Tjoanlu t ippa were adopted—that the Banking Committee in- « whether unlawful combinations for locking Id and money exist, and report what legislate necessaryjo prevent and punish such Unlawful combinations; for the appointment of a committee of three to examine the eause of the loss of stamps from the Assistant Treasurer's office in ‘NcwXork .. Several bills were introduced and refefn’d... .Adjourned. , ' In the Senate, on the 20th, bills were passed—House bill, extending the time for the completion of the Winona & St. Peter Railroad ; authorizing the Kansas National Bank to change its name to the First National Bank of Topeka; appropriating $18,790 for the Texan Commission; the Deficiency Appropriation bill, with amendments. .. .Eight thousand copies of the eulogies on the late Senator Garrett Davis were ordered printaid;....The resolution for a Special Committee to flnvestigate the alleged irregularities in jsaa election was debated.... Executive session and adjournment to January 6. In the House, on the 20th, bills were introduced to extend the time for entries in the Osage lands in Kansas; to secure a more efficient Indian administration in the Territories; to amend _ the Constitution for the election of President, Vice-Prcsident and Seiiators-by the people,. Adjourned to January 6. THE OLD WORLD. Tn the Lower House of the Spanish Cortes, on the 18th, President Zorilla declared it to he the purpose of the Government tolntroduce a law for the abolition of .slavery in Pqrto Rico. He also announced the suppression of the Carlist insurrection, and the prevalence of order in the country. The House, by a vote of 182 to 6, approved these declarations. A Paris telegram of the 19th says the Seine had overflowed in that city. The quays were flooded, and the stores near them were closed. All traffic in that quarter was carried on by boats. Beyond Bercy, a suburb -on the fight bank of the Seine, houses in the vicinity of the river were standing in one vast lake of water. Dispatches from Ghent, Belgium, of the same date, report'that the streams in that section had risen' above tiieir embankments, and the country was inundated. The water was three feet deep in some of the streets. A crisis occurred in the Spanish Cabinet on the 20th, and the Ministers of Finance, Public Works and Colonics have retired. Senor Echegary has been appointed Minister of Finance ; Becerra, Minister of Public Works, and Mosquera, Minister of Colonies. Large portions of the country in Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, England, were submerged, on tha 20tb, by floods. In some sections of these counties the tops of trees and hedges only were visible. A dispatch from Liverpool on the 20th says that 449 persons, including passengers, had perished by marine disasters within the previous ten days. Thirty persons were lost by the sinking of the ship Matchless, off Northumberland County. There was a demonstration in Paris on the 20th of three thousand students, in favor of Professor Robin, a distinguished member of the Institute, who had been struck from the jury list in consequence of his disbelief in the existence of God. * U The freshet in the Seine was subsiding on the 21st. Tiie river Thames, whicli had already overflowed its banks in many places, suddenly rose nearly a foot on the 21st, at Windsor. Home Park was one vast lake of water, and thousands of acres of other lauds wore submerged. The French Assembly has passed the bill restoring to the Orleans Princes their confiscated property. The Assembly adjourned on the 31st for the holidays. It was estimated in London on the 23d that the total liabilities of the exploded ‘flrm of Bowles Bros., bankers, would foot up more than £250,000; assets, £48,000. An explosion occurred on the 21st in a coal mine of Silverdale, England, by which eight miners were suffocated. The German papers state that the American press has greatly exaggerated the action of the Prussian Government looking toward the checking of -emigration. The partial revocation of reduced fares foremigrants on the German railways is “required by motives of political economy and private interest.” • < THE NEW WORLD. ’ Gold closed in New York On'the 24th at The'Cojnptroller of. the Currency has authorized the following banks to commence business: American German National Rank, at Paducah, capital, 1100,000; Third National Bank, Urbana* Ohio, capital, SIOO,OOO. Hon. William Wirt Virgin, of Portland, has been nominated ..by the Governor to: fill • ■ «

the vacancy in the Supreme Court of Maine. Resolutions condemnatory of the course of Senator Sumner in introducing a bill into the. United States Senate to remove all inscriptions relating to the rebellion from the army register and National regimental flags, Were passed by the Massachusetts Legislature on the 18th. The vote in the House was 104 yeas to 76 nays; in the Senate, yeas 20, nays 9. The New Hampshire State Temperance Convention, held at Concord on the 18th, nominated the Rev. John Blackman for Governor, and Asa S. Kendall for Railroad Commissioner. Prohibitory resolutions were adopted. Nominations for Congress were made as follows: First District, Rev. A. G. earning; Second District, J. M. Fletcher; Third District, A. C. Hardy. z Messrs. Blinn A Anson, of Cairo, who claim to have recently had $20,000 stolen from them, and who were subsequently arrested by the United States Marshal on the charge of an attempt to defraud tiieir creditors, have been required to give bail in the sum of SIO,OOO. On the evening of the 17th a sharp shock of air earthquake was felt at Visalia, Cal., but no damage was done. The epizootic was prevailing to a great extent at Leavenworth, Kansas, on the 18th. The bill to remove the capital of West, Virginia from Charlestown to Wheeling passed the Housfi_on the 17th, by a vote of 33 to 30. Edward A. Pollard, the editor and’au'thor, died at Lynchburg, Va., on the 16th, aged forty-live. The Kellogg Legislature, on the 18th, passed the bill punishing bribery in office. The Court of Impeachment adjourned to the 23d instant. In his letter of the 14th", to AttorneyGeneral Williams, Attorney-General Ogden, of Louisiana, argues in favor of the Warmoth side of the quarrel, and says : “ The action of the Executive in recognizing the assemblage at Mechanics’ Institute in New Orleans as the Legislature of Louisiana, and P. B. S. Pinchbeck, as Governor, was certainly premature. Pinchbeck was never Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and his term as a Senator expired under the Constitution or the Slate on the fourth day of November last. The assemblage at Mechanics’ Institute was notoriously returned and seated by a Deputy United States Marshal, under, the order of an inferior. Federal Court.” Speaking of the State election, Mr. Ogden says it “was the most quiet and orderly ever held in the State; not a symptom of riotous disposition, not even a personal quarrel or encounter connected with politics.was reported by the police authorities in any direction. The machinery of the State Government was in perfect order after the election, and entirely competent to manage its own 'affairs, and with courts of justice ready to protect the rights of every citizen. By a sudden action of an inferior Federal court, which was absolutely coram iior, Jndiee, the State Government is completely overset, the. State-House seized, and a government enacted whose officers the people have never ehoeen.” The President s'ent the following" nominations to the Senate on the 19th: Chas B Wilkinson, Collector of Internal Revenue, Sixth District, Missouri. Postmasters —B. M. Crawford, Wamego, Kan.; J. W. Whipps, New Lexington Ohio; L. T. Chcevcr, Delavan, Ill,; Mrs. Eliza Sellers, Pekin, 111. ; F. M. Tripp, Farmer City, Hi.; Samuel Mathews, Sidney, Ohio; John McArthur, Chicago, 111. Telegraph dispatches of the 19th announce that the negotiations between the New York IWiumrCompany and Vica.-President Colfax, looking to the latter’s editorship of that paper, had failed. Col. F. A. Eastman has resigned his position as Postmaster at Chicago, the resignation to take effect February 14. By an accident on the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, near Reynolds, Mich., on the 18th, ten persons—seven men and three women—were injured, two or three probably fatally. A switch engine exploded at Lafayette, Ind., on the 19th. David McNary, engineer, was instantly killed. The houses in the ..vicinity of the explosion were completely riddled, and; many hair-breadth escapes occurred. The Alabama Senate organized permanently ou the 18th, and elected Democratic officers. In the House the Republicans would not permit the journal to be read. They insisted on adjourning immediately after the roll-call, and carried their point. : The President, his son Jesse, and Marshal Sharpe left Washington on the 20th, for Covington, Ky., to visit the President’s father. The Credit-Mobilier Committee adjourned on the 20th to the 7th es January. Testimony is said to have been given implicating several prominent Congressmen, Ames claiming to have sold to and carried stock for them. The Louisiana Committee, at their meet ; ing in Washington on the 20th, agreed to issue an address to the people of the United States, setting forth the law and facts in the case now disturbing that State, and to petition Congress for relief when its session shall be/esumed, immediately after the holidays. Jay Gould, who was some time since arrested on a charge of having appropriated to his own use $9,000,000 of the Erie Rail road funds while he was President of that corporation, has refunded that amount, and the suit against him has been withdrawn. The Boston Board of Aldermen have re fused licenses to Mesdames Woodhull and Claflin tp lecture in Music Hall.. George Francis Train Was arrested in New York on the 20th antTlocked up in a station house, on a bench warrant, to answer the charge of publishing obscene literature. The Committee on recounting the votes for Mayor and Aidermen of Boston, concluded the Mayoralty count on the 20th, and their figures elect Henry L. Pierce, by a plurality of 79 votes over Mayor Gaston. The recount of the ballots in the Second Ward shows a mistake of about 500 votes; and other wards also showsdiserepancies in figuring np the votes for Aldermcn. Fifteen hundred and thirty-one buildings have been erected’tn St.- Louis during the past year, at a cost of $5,684,000. Of these, buildings only eighty-six are frame. The semi annual report of the Ohio State Commissioners shows that the receipts for the period ending November 15, 1872, were. $878,845-,' and the disbursements $635,845. There was on deposit in New York at the date of the report $125,312, for the purchase and redemption of Ohio State.stocks. During the past six months $192,203 of funded

debt has been redebmted, And the Amount outstanding November 15 was $8,583,546. . the Alabama House permanently organized on the 20th, by the election of L. C.-Parsons, Speaker; Robert Barber, Clerk; R. Whitaker (colored), Door-Keeper; and W. V. Turner, Assistant Clerk, all being Republicans. At the election for doorkeeper, more votes were cast than members present. Both Candidates were Republicans. TRe Louisiana. Committee expressed a desire, on the 20th, to have Judge Bradley, of the Supreme Court, go to New Orleans to review the proceedings of Judge Durell. It was said, on the 21st, that Judge Bradley was not desirous of going, and that he would notdp so unless at the suggestion of he President. Judge Orr, of South Carolina, has accepted the Russian mission, and expects to sail for Europe about the middle of January. George Palmer Putnam, the well-known publisher, died suddenly in New York on the evening of the 20th, ‘ of apoplexy. A full jury" was completed in the Stokes case on the 21st, ' A report appeared in a New York paper a few mornings ago to the effect that the wellknown actors Sothern and W. J. Florence were to fight a duel. The rumor has been traced to a gigantic practical joke played on Philip Lee, a newly-arrived young Englishman, husband of Miss Neilson, the actress. Lee was invited to dine with Sothern, who promised he should meet a party or characteristic Americans. Lee accepted and sat down to dinner .with Sothern, Neil Bryant, Chris. Connors, Billy Birch, Billy Florence, and Nelsc Seymour, the last named five being under assnmed names. Their costumes were very peculiar. They proceeded to eat with their fingers, tilt their legs on the table, and finally got into a quarrel, in which immense bowie knives and Colt’s navy revolvers were brandished. Sothern gave Florence a mock challenge, upon which Lee fled from the room, though Sothern tried to explain it was the “custom of the country.” One of the party had Sothern and Florence subpoenaed to appear at the Tombs, which they did, explainingtheir joke to Justice Dowling, and receiving their discharge upon their own recognizance. A strike was in progress among the coalfritrxvFo uGx>F SpFmgfidd, - HL, OH the 21ot, with no sign of backing down on either side. W. H. Mowrer, foreman of the Galesburg (Ill.) Hcffitter, accidentally choked to death while-at his dinner on the 21st. When he sat down he tech a piece of meat, and immediately arose and said, “lam choking;” then returning to the office he started upstairs, got up as far as the third step, and stood for a moment and dropped dead. Intense cold weather was experienced throughout the Western States on the 21st and 22d. In many sections the thermometer marked a lower temperature thau it had for many previous years. At New Orleans, on the 21st, Judge Durell issued a writ directing the,,United- States Marshal to provisionally seize the New Orleans Times newspaper establishment, which order was"'Siecuted, and the office closed. , William O. Avery, one of the oldest clerks of the Internal Revenue service, and who has for several years been Chief of the Appointment Division of the office, has been appointed Cnlef Clerk of the Internal Revenue Bureau, in accordance with the provisions Of 1 the bill recently passed by Congress. The Louisiana-Committee have issued an address to the people of the United States, in which they disclaim being in the interest of the Warmoth or any other faction, but assert that they have attempted to perform the duties of their mission in the purest non-partisan spirit. A recent Washington dispatch says Mr. Boutwell will positively leave the Cabinet in March, and will run for the Senate in place of Henry Wilson. In the New York Oyer and Terminer Court, on the 21st, George Francis Train pleaded guilty to publishing a paper called the Train Lu/ue, which, according to the in dictment, is an obscene publication. He was remanded to the Tombs prison. A New York dispatch of the 22d says Mr. Orton, after considerable negotiation, had resold to Whitelaw Reid fifty shares out of ths 100 constituting the capital stock of the Tribune Association. The paper would, therefere, remain under the chief control of Mr. Reid.

Tiie Central Presbyterian Tabernacle, Brooklyn, of which the Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage is pastor, was destroyed by fire on the mornisg ot the 2:3d. ~The tabernacle was erected in 1870, and, being built of corrugated iron, was regarded as fire-proof. Estimated loss $95,000; insured for $75,000. The New York Herald of the 22d says a number of the present stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad had written to Horace F. Clark, President of the road, asking him to commence a suit for the recovery of $18,000,000, said to have been taken by and divided among those engaged in the Credit- - Mobilier transaction. The Indiana Legislature adjourned on the 21st. During the session the Senate introduced 167 bills and passed 23 of them, and 21 House bills. The House introduced 267 bills and passed 60 of them, and 2*2 Senate bills. The Senate passed 1 joint resolution, and the House 4. > The Chicago Journal of the 23d says: “Not since the fearfully cold New YcaWs day of 1864 has this region known such in, tense frigidity as that of Saturday night and last night. Here the mercury in the thermometer sank as low as 20 and 25 degrees «below -zero, And elsewhere in- .the Northwest it fell several degrees lower.” Several cases of death by freezing are reported in different sections. Four explosions of kitchen ranges occurred in Cincinnati bn the 21st, one in Chicago and one in Cleveland—all caused by the freezing of the water the pipes. Portland, Oregon, had a $350,000 fire on the 23dj, Recent WaAHtgton dispatches contradict the statement that Postmasters were to be held accountable for the loss of registered • letters. Postmaster-General Creswell is now reported as saying that no such ruling was ever made by him, and that in no case’, will the Post-Office or Its Officials be responsible for such losses. Barnum’s Museum and Menagerie, in New York City, was burned on the morning of the 24th. The large collection of curiosities and all the animals (over one hundred), except two elephants and one camel, were burned to death. The building was similar to Talmage's church, destroyed a few days before. It was a vast framework of pine

Covered wltk corrugated sheet-iron. The flames enveloped its interior in a surprisingly short time. The dying agonies of the, motley congregation of animals are vividly described by the spectators. The cages containing the four giraffes Wbre opbned, bill the terrified creatures seemed paralyzed, and would not budge. Some of the keepers wept on finding that they had to abandon their charges. The immense elephant that played the hand organ also refused to leave, but got on his kuess and perished, rubbing his head against the earth and roaring in anguish. The fierce banging of the lions and tigers against their cages could be heard above all the din. The Academy of Music, directly opposite, was saved by the favorable diraction of the wind. Among the animals destroyed were eight camels and dromedaries, one leopard, one yak, one eland, one llama, two sea lions, boa-constrictors, apes, gorillas, ostriches, etc. The loss by this fire was variously estimated at from $500,000 to $1,000,000. On the afternoon of the 25th, a mall train YnFthe Buffalo, Corry & Pittsburgh Railroad, when within about eighty tods of the station at Prospect, was thrown off the track at a trestle work,: and one passenger coach and a baggage car fell off the bridge, a distance of twenty feet, turning over and striking the ground bottom side up. A dispatch of the 25th gives the following particulars: “When the cars struck, the trucks crashed through the bottoms of them, and as the stoves of the passenger cars were directly under the trucks they were arushed to pieces, and Itnmediately the woodwork of the cars took fire. Ot forty-six people known to have been in the cars, but one escaped unaided, namely,the brakeman on the passenger coach, who jumped clear off the cars as they„wcre falling. The woodwork of the passenger car, thiekly coated as it was with varnish, burned freely, and before anything could be done by the force at hand to prevent it, the flames enveloped both ends of the car, and crept rapidly toward the center. Penned within at this time, with no possible chance to extricate themselves, were fortythree adult passengers, the conductor and one child. Of those seated in the ends of the ear, none escaped, but, help arriving, about twenty-five dead and living were taken out of the center of it, and the flames were extinguished, or, more correctly speaking, went out for lack of anything further to feed upon. The roll foots -up as follows: Saved, all more or less injured, 19; dead, 19; missing, 8. The dead, with four exceptions, ware burned so as to be unrecognizable from the features, and there are but three that could possibly be identified from the shreds of clothing adhering to the roasted flesh. Five were headless and without limbs, and the remaining ones had the flesh all burned off the extrmities. The eight missing are supposed to have been completely consumed, and there are pieces of skulls, watches, and the like, sufficient to partially justify such a belief.” The cause of the accident is supposed to have been a broken flange on the tender. The entire block on the west side of Centre street, between Leonard and North, New York City, was burned on the evening of the 24th. Among the establishments destroyed was that of the New York Newspaper Union. Seven persons perished in the flames, an<! five others were more or less injured. Tho total loss by this fire was estimated at $250,000. Satanta and Big Tree, the Kiow-a Chiefs who had been confined in Jail in St. Lonis for three months, left on the 23d for the Texas Penitentiary at Huntsville, in charge of United States Deputy Marshals Newcomb and Morgan. A servant girl in employ at W. F. Flagg’s residence, Bloomington, 111., in trying thy virtue of kerosene as a fire kindler, was so badly burned that her recovery was doubtful. The stove was demolished, scattering the girl, oil, can, etc.? promiscuously around the room. In Sprinflfleld, 111., on the same day, Miss Belle Wallace, eighteen years old, was fatally burned while trying to light a fire by pouring coal oil on It. The can exploded and set her clothes on fire. Intense cold weather continued throughout the West and South on the morning of the 24th. A woman and her three childrqj, living in a log hut on German Prairie, near Springfield, 111., were found in frozen to death on the morning of the 24th. A Cedar Rapids (lows) dispatch of the 28d says: “Several towns west of Beene are reported suffering from want of coal, and have to bufn furniture to keep from freezing. This is especially the case in Carroll, lowa.”

A large antount of business property was burned at Helena, Ark., on the 23d. Loss about $67,000. , Wm. M. Harrison, a Reform candidate for Associate Justice in Arkansas, filed a bill of complaint on thfc 24th, asking for an injunction to prevent M. L. Stevenson and E. J. Earl, the Republican candidates, whose election had been announced by the State Department, frc<n exercising the duties of office; and sdso asking for a restraining order to prevent Acting Governor Hadley and Secretary of State Johnson from altering or changing, the original rerurns, and asking for a mandamus to compel them to produce in Court the original returns, statements, etc., in reference to the election. The bill charges the Governor, Secretary of State, Registrars, County Clerks and Judges of Election with confederating together and fraudulently depriving thousands of citizens of the right to vote; of changing and altering the rAirns, and preYenting the jeturihs I r ° m being made from four counties, by which the complainant avers he was deprived of the benefit of 10,000 tote*. —Timid people should avoid England. A poor little girl was arrested there and kept a week in jail, simply because she looked nervous and afraid, and a little man from the country behaved so queerly, on his first visit to London, that the police locked him up. He was the mast Fnarmlcss creature in the world, and being scared was his only offense. —A Louisville man, who had only been acquainted with his girl two nights, at- : tempted .ici ~ kiss her at the gate. In his ; dying deposition he told the doctors that just as he “kissed her the earth slid out from under his feet, and his soul went out of his mouth, while his head, touched the stars.” Later dispatches show that i what ailed him was man’s boots. —A fashion paper says: “Satin dresses are to be no longer worn by brides.” They could not be worn any longer than I they are now without tripping up everyI body in the room.