Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1875 — NEWS OF THE WEEK. [ARTICLE]

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

VORBICN. There arrived ifi New York on the 9th the crew of a shipwrecked vessel who had been thrown upon a small island off the coast of Cuba, and who report that while there they found the decomposed remains of four men, who had built huts and wereevidently a part of the crew of an iron ship which appeared sunk near the shore. They had probably died of starvation. Russia has by special decree, issued Nov. 6, annexed that portion of Khokand lying on the right bank of the Syr Daria, from the Russian frontier to the River JJareen. A London dispatch of the 11th says heavy storms had prevailed in France and England during the week preceding, and vast tracts of country were threatened by the rising floods. A Constantinople dispatch of the 11th says the Sublime Porte had ordered the districts of Trebigno, Biletz and Piva to be detached from Heraegovlna and organized as a separate department, to be placed under an Arminian Greek Governor. The large cotton-mills at Glasgow, Scotland, belonging to Robertson <fc Co. and Young & Co. were totally burned on the 11th. Loss estimated at $1,500,000, and 1,200 persons were thrown out of employment. A terrible explosion of fire-damp occurred in a Belgian colliery on the 10th. Up to the 12th forty-two dead bodies had been recovered, and it was feared a large number were still in the pit and probably killed. A London dispatch of the 13th says the cholera in India had interfered to some extent with the programme of the Prince of Wales. According to a dispatch of the 13th' a tidal wave ten feet high swept up Farret River, Somersetshire, England, on the morning of that day, breaking the lock-gates at Bridgewater, sinking one vessel and more or less injuring twenty others. Numerous disastrous floods were reported throughout England and Ireland on the 14th. Cardinal McCloskey left Queenstown for New York on the 14th. A telegram from Cattaro, published in London on the 15th, says that eight Turkish battalions under Server Pasha had been surrounded near Gatschko by 3,000 Herzegovinians, and at last accounts a desperate battle was being fought, The ship Calcutta, from Quebec for Liverpool, was recently wrecked at Grosse Isle. Twenty-two of the crew and a lady passenger were drowned. The Captain, three men and a boy were saved.

DOMESTIC. The steamship City of Waco, which arrived at Galveston, Tex., on the Bth from New York, loaded with oil, anchored outside the harbor and was discovered to be on lire at one o’clock on the morning of the 9th. There were forty-eight persons on board the vessel, eight of whom were cabin and twelve steerage passengers. There was a . heavy wind at the time of the fire, and the vessel was soon burned to the water’s edge and sank. Great uncertainty existed on the 9th as tn the fate of those on board, some reports being to the effect that they had taken to the boats and drifted ent into the gulf, a heavy gale prevailing at the time; but a dispatch from Galveston on the morning of the 10th says the impression was gaining ground that they had all perished on the ill-fated vessel. A severe earthquake-shock was felt in portions of Missouri and Kansas early on the morning of tHe 10th. At Independence, Mo., several brick buildings sustained considerable injury, and dishes were thrown from shelves, the citizens being aroused from sound slumber, thinking their houses were falling. The shock felt at Topeka and elsewhere in Kansas was equally severe. Another survivor of the crew of the steamer Pacific was picked up at three o’clock on the morning of the Bth, thirty miles inside the Straits of Fuca. He was floating on a raft from which he says Capt Howell had been washed off and drowned. The name of the rescued man is Neal O’Haley. He says the Pacific was struck by a vessel under full sail. Two boats got away from the wreck. Five dead bodies had also been recovered up to the Bth. Forged tickets purporting to have been issued by the Illinois Central Railroad at Chicago, and to be good for a passage from Chicago to Denver, by the way of St. Louis, were offered to a ticket-agent in New York city, on the 10th, for sale at a reduced price. The Chicago papers of the 11 th state that an arrangemerjt for the pooling of all earnings had been entered into by the Lake Shore, the Michigan Central and the Fort Wayne Railroads, and all the other trunk lines to the West had consented to it, and would act in concert with the new combination in the matter of rates. A singular accident occurred at the Detroit (Mich.) Pullman car works on the afternoon of the 10th. A large air-tube, six feet square, extends from the bailment to the roof to carry up the dust of the planingmachine to the cupola. While twelve or fifteen men were sweeping dust from the cupola down the tube to be carried away, the fine particles took fire from smoldering embers near the foot of the flue and exploded with a burst of flame, which burned several of the men fearfully, some of them dangerThe report of the Paymaster General of the Army shows that there has been disbursed to the army during the last year $ 12,272,102.38, and to the Military Academy $202,236.04. The number of desertions during the year was 2,521, against 4,606 the previous year. The re-enlistments aggregated i,956, as against 699 the previous year. . In hi»annual report the Commissioner of Internal Revenue says the British public, numbering less by one-fourth than our people, paid under their excise laws during the year ending March 21,1875, toes measured in gold to the amount of $183,962,756, against $110,545,154 paid in currency by the people of v’this country during the fiscal year ended June 30,1875. The Commissioner of the General LandOffice in his report recommends that all the timber lands owned by the Government be opened to purchasers at l a minimum valuation, and thus be placed under private guardianship. He also recommends the adoption of the plan of public sales heretofore practiced, but now Abandoned.- He thinks that the Pre-emption laws should be repealed, and the homestead system be made the only method of acquir'

lag title to agricultural lands. The number of acres disposed of during the last year was 7,070,371, being 2,400,001 less than the previous year. Of this amount 2,356,057 acres were homestead entries and 3,107,643 were certified to railroads; 745,001 acres were disposed of at cash sales. The cash receipts during the year were $1,784,001. The 12th inst. was observed as a day of fasting and prayer by the clergymen of Brooklyn, in accordance with the request of Mr. Moody. The vessel which collided with the steamer Pacific proves to have been the bark Orpheus, which was afterward wrecked on the rocks and went to pieces, her crew escaping. No more survivors of those on board the Pacific at the time of the disaster had been found up to the 12th. A donkey-boat belonging to the burned steamer Waco has been found out in the gulf, bottom up; it had not been scorched. No signs of any of those on board the vessel at the time of its destruction had been found up to the 12th, and all hope that any had survived the disaster was abandoned. A New York dispatch of the 12th says the Waco had on board 300 cases of petroleum, which she had no right to carry, being without the necessary certificate, and her owners would be prosecuted. According to the annual report of the Commissioner of Education there has been an increase of 164,000 school children during the year. Thirty-five out of thirty-seven States report the number of teachers; thirty-seven States and eleven Territories report the publicschool income, which shows an increase of 11,282,000, but only thirty-five States and nine Territories can show their school expenditures. There are enrolled in the public schools 8,000,000 pupils. The average dally attendance is 4,500,000; the estimated population between six and sixteen years of age is 10,536,674; number of teachers employed, 241,300; total income public schools (States and Territories), $82,158,905; total expenditures) $74,974,988; value of school buildings, $165,' 758,447. A Mr. Nicholas Thomas, of Chicago, has perfected a new motor similar in a general way to the so-called Keely invention, but differing in application and effect. The Chicago Tribune of the 13th says: “The Chicago motor like the other derives its power from water and air, and is conceived on the seemingly contradictory principle of multiplying force without the aid of force to begin withFrom the practical tests made* by Mr. Thomas, the inventor, it has been shown that an extraordinary apparent pressure can be produced by his apparatus, though it has not yet been demonstrated that motive power can be obtained in proportion to the amount of this pressure." On account of the state of the markets the Amoskeag Mills, of Manchester, N. H., have given notice of a cut-down of from 5 to 15 per cent, on the wages of operatives from Dec. 1.

PERSONAL. The following-named gentlemen compose the committee appointed by the Congregational Association of Ministers to investigate the charges against Mr. Beecher: Rev. Wm. Taylor, of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York; Rev. Dr. William Ives Budington, of Profs. Parsons and Martin, of the New York Theological Seminary, and Rev. Charles 11. Everest, of the Church’of the Puntans, Brooklyn. Plymouth Church has referred to a committee the charge made by Mrs. Moulton against Mr. Beecher. Henry R. Mann, for fifteen years Treasurer of Saratoga County, N. Y., has proven a defaulter in the sum of nearly or quite $150,000. A paper-collar manufactory in which his son was interested has failed, and is supposed to have absorbed a portion of the missing funds. Further failures at the East were announced on the 10th. Among them were the firm of James Wickham & Son, commission merchants of New York city, and F. Geedowsky, an extensive furniture-manufacturer of Boston. • Col. Joyce, ex-Bupervisor of Internal Revenue at St. Louis, convicted of conspiracy to defraud the Government revenues, asked leave on the 12th to withdraw his motion for a new trial and demanded that sentence be passed in his case. C. J. Moeller, an exGauger of Milwaukee, was found guilty on the 12th of making false returns to the Government. President Grant has appointed Hiram Leffingwell to be United States Marshal for the District of Missouri, and T. C. Woodward, of lowa, to be Examiner-in-Chief of the Patent Office. . Mrs. Moulton on the 13th addressed a letter to Lawyer Shearman, as Clerk of Plymouth Church, asking the church to join with her in calling a Council of Churches, before which Plymouth Church should give its reasons for the action taken in dropping her name from its roll of membership, and she should state her reasons for absenting herself from the services of the church, lu case of refusal on the part of the church to comply with this request within four weeks, she gives notice that shqkhall herself call for such a council. At Jefferson City, Mo., on the 13th, Col. Joyce was sentenced to imprisonment in the Penitentiary for a term of three and a half years and to pay a fine of S3OO. Before sentence was passed he addressed the court in his own behalf, pleading for a mitigation of sentence and declaring himself the victim of self-convicted perjurers and thieves. It is said Joyce’s motive in demanding a sentence was to avoid being called upon to answer a number of indictments pending against him at St. Louis. Another reason given is that he was prompted by a desire to protect others from the effect of any testimony be might otherwise have been called upon to o-ic» A New York dispatch the 12th says Judge Moore, of Brooklyn, had decided to grant an order for a commission to take the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Richards in the Loader perjury case. The body of Capt. Wolfe, the Galveston pilot who went out on board the City of Waco, has been found near where the steamer went down. His remains bear several marks which appear to be burns.

POLITICAL. The complete vote of Massachusetts at the recent election gives Rice (Rep.), for Governor, 83,523; Gaston (Dem.), 78,246; Baker (Pro.), 8,965; Adams, 1,774; Phillips, 301. It was thought on the Sth that Bigelow, the Democratic candidate for Secretary of State of New York, would have about 18,000 ma. jority. The New York State Senate will contain 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats; House, 68 Republicans and 60 Democrats. The New Hampshire Prohibitionists held a State Convention at Concord on the 10th and nominated A. J. Kendall for Governor. Thomas A. Doyle (Rep.) has beep re-elected Mayor of Providence, R. I„ for the tenth time.

The new Minnesota Legislature will be composed as follows: Senste—Republicans, 24;Opposition, 17. -House—Republicans, 65; Opposition, 41. ,t. A Milwaukee telegram of the 11th places Ludington’s (Rep.) majority for Governor of Wisconsin at 900. The balance of the Democratic State ticket is elected by majorities ranging from,lso to 300 except Kuehn for Treasurer, who would have from 2,500 to 3,000. . According to the latest publication of what is said to be the official returns of the Pennsylvania election Hartranft’s plurality over Pershing is 11,945. The Prchibition vote is nearly 10,000. The official canvass of the vote in Mary, land gives Carroll, Democratic candidate for Governor, 12,821 majority. Total vote of the State, 158,127. The Democrats have a majority of twelve in the State ftgnate and thirty in the House.